Cofv|    I 


MOHAMMEDANISM 


AMERICAN  LECTURES  O 
HISTORY  OF  RELIGIO 

SERIES  OF  1914-1915 


MOHAMMEDANISM 

Lectures  on  Its  Origin,  Its  Religious  and 

Political  Growth,  and  Its 

Present  State 


BY 

C.  SNOUCK  HURGRONJE 

Formerly  Professor  of  the  Arabic  Language  in  the  University  of 
Leiden,  Holland 


f 


G.  P.  PUTNAM'S  SONS 
NEW  YORK 


Copyright,  191 6,  by  G.  P.  Putnam's  Sons 

All  rights  reserved.  This  book,  or  parts  thereof,  must 
not   be  reproduced   in  any   form  without  permission. 


PRINTED   IN   THE   UNITED    STATES    OF    AMERICA 


ANNOUNCEMENT 

The  American  Lectures  on  the  History  of 
Religions  are  delivered  under  the  auspices  of  the 
American  Committee  for  Lectures  on  the  His- 
tory of  Religions.  This  Committee  was  or- 
ganized in  1892,  for  the  purpose  of  instituting 
"popular  courses  in  the  History  of  Religions, 
somewhat  after  the  style  of  the  Hibbert  Lectures 
in  England,  to  be  delivered  by  the  best  scholars 
of  Europe  and  this  country,  in  various  cities,  such 
as  Baltimore,  Boston,  Brooklyn,  Chicago,  New 
York,  Philadelphia/' 

The  terms  of  association  under  which  the  Com- 
mittee exists  are  as  follows : 

I. — The  object  of  this  Committee  shall  be  to 
provide  courses  of  lectures  on  the  history  of  re- 
ligions, to  be  delivered  in  various  cities. 

2. — The  Committee  shall  be  composed  of  dele- 
gates from  the  institutions  agreeing  to  co-oper- 
ate, with  such  additional  members  as  may  be 
chosen  by  these  delegates. 

3. — These  delegates — one  from  each  institu- 
tion, with  the  additional  members  selected — shall 
constitute  themselves  a  council  under  the  name 
of  the  "American  Committee  for  Lectures  on  the 
History  of  Religions." 


vi  ANNOUNCEMENT 

4. — The  Committee  shall  elect  out  of  its  num- 
ber a  Chairman,  a  Secretary,  and  a  Treasurer. 

5. — All  matters  of  local  detail  shall  be  left  to 
the  co-operating  institutions  under  whose  aus- 
pices the  lectures  are  to  be  delivered. 

6. — A  course  of  lectures  on  some  religion,  or 
phase  of  religion,  from  an  historical  point  of 
view,  or  on  a  subject  germane  to  the  study  of 
religions,  shall  be  delivered  annually,  or  at  such 
intervals  as  may  be  found  practicable,  in  the  dif- 
ferent cities  represented  by  this  Committee. 

7. — The  Committee  (a)  shall  be  charged  with 
the  selection  of  the  lectures,  (b)  shall  have 
charge  of  the  funds,  (c)  shall  assign  the  time  for 
the  lectures  in  each  city,  and  perform  such  other 
functions  as  may  be  necessary. 

8. — Polemical  subjects,  as  well  as  polemics  in 
the  treatment  of  subjects,  shall  be  positively 
excluded. 

9. — The  lectures  shall  be  delivered  in  the  vari- 
ous cities  between  the  months  of  September  and 
June. 

10. — The  copyright  of  the  lectures  shall  be  the 
property  of  the  Committee. 

II. — The  compensation  of  the  lecturer  shall  be 
fixed  in  each  case  by  the  Committee. 

12. — The  lecturer  shall  be  paid  in  instalments 
after  each  course,  until  he  shall  have  received 
half  of  the  entire  compensation.  Of  the  remain- 
ing half,  one  half  shall  be  paid  to  him  upon  de- 


ANNOUNCEMENT  vii 

livery  of  the  manuscript,  properly  prepared  for 
the  press,  and  the  second  half  on  the  publication 
of  the  volume,  less  a  deduction  for  corrections 
made  by  the  author  in  the  proofs. 

The  Committee  as  now  constituted  is  as  fol- 
lov^^s: 

Prof.  Crawford  H.  Toy,  Chairman,  7  Lowell 
St.,  Cambridge,  Mass. ;  Rev.  Dr.  John  P.  Peters, 
Treasurer,  227  W.  99th  St.,  New  York  City; 
Prof.  Morris  Jastrow,  Jr.,  Secretary,  248  So.  23d 
St.,  Philadelphia,  Pa. ;  President  Francis  Brown, 
Union  Theological  Seminary,  New  York  City; 
Prof.  Richard  Gottheil,  Columbia  University, 
New  York  City;  Prof.  Harry  Pratt  Judson,  Uni- 
versity of  Chicago,  Chicago,  111.;  Prof.  Paul 
Haupt,  Johns  Hopkins  University,  Baltimore, 
Md. ;  Mr.  Charles  D.  Atkins,  Director,  Brooklyn 
Institute  of  Arts  and  Sciences;  Prof.  E.  W.  Hop- 
kins, Yale  University,  New  Haven,  Conn. ;  Prof. 
Edward  Knox  Mitchell,  Hartford  Theological 
Seminary,  Hartford,  Conn.;  President  F.  K. 
Sanders,  Washburn  College,  Topeka,  Kan. ;  Prof. 
H.  P.  Smith,  Meadville  Theological  Seminary, 
Meadville,  Pa. ;  Prof.  W.  J.  Hinke,  Auburn  Theo- 
logical Seminary,  Auburn,  N.  Y.;  Prof.  Kemper 
Fullerton,  Oberlin  Theological  Seminary,  Ober- 
lin,  Ohio. 

The  lecturers  in  the  course  of  American  Lec- 
tures on  the  History  of  Religions  and  the  titles 
of  their  volumes  are  as  follows : 


viii  ANNOUNCEMENT 

1894-1895— Prof.  T.  W.  Rhys-Davids,  Ph.D. — 
Buddhism. 

1 896-1 897— Prof.  Daniel  G.  Brinton,  M.D., 
LL.D. — Religions  of  Primitive  Peo- 
ples. 

1 897-1 898— Rev.  Prof.  T.  K.  Cheyne,  D.D.— 
Jewish  Religious  Life  after  the  Exile. 

1898-1899— Prof.  Karl  Budde,  D.D.— Religion  of 
Israel  to  the  Exile. 

1904-1905— Prof.  George  Steindorff,  Ph.D.— T^e 
Religion  of  the  Ancient  Egyptians. 

1905-1906— Prof.  George  W.  Knox,  D.D.,  LL.D. 
— The  Development  of  Religion  in 
Japan. 

1906-1907 — Prof.  Maurice  Bloomfield,  Ph.D., 
LL.D. — The  Religion  of  the  Veda. 

1907-1908— Prof.  A.  V.  W.  Jackson,  Ph.D., 
LL.D. — The  Religion  of  Persia.^ 

1909-1910 — Prof.  Morris  Jastrovv^,  Jr.,  Ph.D. — 
Aspects  of  Religious  Belief  and  Prac- 
tice in  Babylonia  and  Assyria. 

1910-1911 — Prof.  J.  J.  M.  DeGroot — The  Devel- 
opment of  Religion  in  China. 

iThis  course  was  not  published  by  the  Committee,  but  will  form 
part  of  Prof.  Jackson's  volume  on  the  Religion  of  Persia  in  the  series 
of  Handbooks  on  the  History  of  Religions,  edited  by  Prof.  Morris 
Jastrow,  Jr.,  and  published  by  Messrs.  Ginn  &  Company  of  Boston. 
Prof.  Jastrow's  volume  is,  therefore,  the  eighth  in  the  series. 


ANNOUNCEMENT  ix 

1911-1912 — Prof.  Franz  Cumont.^ — Astrology  and 
Religion  among  the  Greeks  and 
Romans. 

The  lecturer  for  1914  was  Professor  C.  Snouck 
Hurgronje.  Born  in  Oosterhout,  Holland,  in 
1857,  he  studied  Theology  and  Oriental  Lan- 
guages at  the  University  of  Leiden  and  continued 
his  studies  at  the  University  of  Strassburg.  In 
1880  he  published  his  first  important  work  Het 
Mekkaansch  Feest,  having  resolved  to  devote  him- 
self entirely  to  the  study  of  Mohammedanism  in 
its  widest  aspects.  After  a  few  years'  activity 
as  Lecturer  on  Mohammedan  Law  at  the  Semi- 
nary for  Netherlands-India  in  Leiden,  he  spent 
eight  months  (1884-5)  in  Mecca  and  Jidda.  In 
1888,  he  became  lecturer  at  the  University  of 
Leiden  and  in  the  same  year  was  sent  out  as 
Professor  to  Batavia  in  Netherlands-India,  where 
he  spent  the  years  1889-1906.  Upon  his  return 
he  was  appointed  Professor  of  Arabic  at  the  Uni- 
versity of  Leiden.  Among  his  principal  pub- 
lished works  may  be  mentioned:  Mekka,  The 
Hague,  1888-9;  De  Beteekenis  van  den  Islam  voor 
zijne  Belijders  in  Oost  Indie,  Leiden,  1883;  Mek- 
kanische  Sprickworter,  The  Hague,  1886;  De  At- 
jehers,  Leiden,  1903-4,  England  tr.  London,  1906; 


2  Owing  to  special  circumstances,  Prof.  Cumont's  volume  was  pub- 
lished before  that  of  Prof.  DeGroot.  It  is,  therefore,  the  ninth  in 
the  series  and  that  of  Prof.  DeGroot  the  tenth. 


X  ANNOUNCEMENT 

Het  Gajoland  en  zijne  Bewoners,  Batavia,  1903,  and 
Nederland  en  de  Islam,  Leiden,  191 5. 

The  lectures  to  be  found  in  the  present  volume 
were  delivered  before  the  following  Institutions : 
Columbia  University,  Yale  University,  The  Uni- 
versity of  Pennsylvania,  Meadville  Theological 
Seminary,  The  University  of  Chicago,  The  Low- 
ell Institute,  and  the  Johns  Hopkins  University. 

The  Committee  owes  a  debt  of  deep  gratitude 
to  Mr.  Charles  R.  Crane  for  having  made  pos- 
sible the  course  of  lectures  for  the  year  1914. 

Richard  Gottheil 
Crawford  H.  Toy 

Committee  on  Publication. 

April,  1916. 


CONTENTS 

PAGE 

Some  Points  Concerning  the  Origin  of 

Islam         15 

The  Religious  Development  of  Islam       .       54 

The  Political  Development  of  Islam     .       86 

Islam  and  Modern  Thought     ...      -117 

Index 151 


MOHAMMEDANISM 


I 

SOME  POINTS  CONCERNING  THE 
ORIGIN  OF  ISLAM 

There  are  more  than  two  hundred  million 
people  who  call  themselves  after  the  name  of 
Mohammed,  would  not  relinquish  that  name  at 
any  price,  and  cannot  imagine  a  greater  blessing 
for  the  remainder  of  humanity  than  to  be  incor- 
porated into  their  communion.  Their  ideal  is  no 
less  than  that  the  whole  earth  should  join  in  the 
faith  that  there  is  no  god  but  Allah  and  that 
Mohammed  is  Allah's  last  and  most  perfect  mes- 
senger, who  brought  the  latest  and  final  revela- 
tion of  Allah  to  humanity  in  Allah's  own  words. 
This  alone  is  enough  to  claim  our  special  interest 
for  the  Prophet,  who  in  the  seventh  century 
stirred  all  Arabia  into  agitation  and  whose  fol- 
lowers soon  after  his  death  founded  an  empire 
extending  from  Morocco  to  China. 

Even  those  who — to  my  mind,  not  without 
gross  exaggeration — would  seek  the  explanation 
of  the  mighty  stream  of  humanity  poured  out  by 
the  Arabian  peninsula  since  630  over  Western 
and  Middle  Asia,  Northern  Africa,  and  Southern 
Europe  principally  in  geographic  and  economic 

15 


i6  MOHAMMEDANISM 

causes,  do  not  ignore  the  fact  that  it  was  Moham- 
med who  opened  the  sluice  gates.  It  would  in- 
deed be  difficult  to  maintain  that  without  his 
preaching  the  Arabs  of  the  seventh  century- 
would  have  been  induced  by  circumstances  to 
swallow  up  the  empire  of  the  Sasanids  and  to  rob 
the  Byzantine  Empire  of  some  of  its  richest  prov- 
inces. However  great  a  weight  one  may  give  to 
political  and  economic  factors,  it  was  religion, 
Islam,  which  in  a  certain  sense  united  the  hitherto 
hopelessly  divided  Arabs,  Islam  which  enabled 
them  to  found  an  enormous  international  com- 
munity; it  was  Islam  which  bound  the  speedily 
converted  nations  together  even  after  the  shatter- 
ing of  its  political  power,  and  which  still  binds 
them  today  when  only  a  miserable  remnant  of 
that  power  remains. 

The  aggressive  manner  in  which  young  Islam 
immediately  put  itself  in  opposition  to  the  rest  of 
the  world  had  the  natural  consequence  of  awak- 
ening an  interest  which  was  far  from  being  of  a 
friendly  nature.  Moreover  men  were  still  very 
far  from  such  a  striving  towards  universal  peace 
as  would  have  induced  a  patient  study  of  the 
means  of  bringing  the  different  peoples  into  close 
spiritual  relationship,  and  therefore  from  an  en- 
deavour to  understand  the  spiritual  life  of  races 
different  to  their  own.  The  Christianity  of  that 
time  was  itself  by  no  means  averse  to  the  forcible 
extension  of  its  faith,  and  in  the  community  of 
Mohammedans  which  systematically  attempted 


CONCERNING  THE  ORIGIN  OF  ISLAM      17 

to  reduce  the  world  to  its  authority  by  force  of 
arms,  it  saw  only  an  enemy  whose  annihilation 
was,  to  its  regret,  beyond  its  power.  Such  an 
enemy  it  could  no  more  observe  impartially  than 
one  modern  nation  can  another  upon  which  it 
considers  it  necessary  to  make  war.  Everything 
maintained  or  invented  to  the  disadvantage  of 
Islam  was  greedily  absorbed  by  Europe;  the  pic- 
ture which  our  forefathers  in  the  Middle  Ages 
formed  of  Mohammed's  religion  appears  to  us  a 
malignant  caricature.  The  rare  theologians^ 
who,  before  attacking  the  false  faith,  tried  to 
form  a  clear  notion  of  it,  were  not  listened  to, 
and  their  merits  have  only  become  appreciated 
in  our  own  time.  A  vigorous  combating  of  the 
prevalent  fictions  concerning  Islam  would  have 
exposed  a  scholar  to  a  similar  treatment  to  that 
which,  fifteen  years  ago,  fell  to  the  lot  of  any 
Englishman  who  maintained  the  cause  of  the 
Boers;  he  would  have  been  as  much  of  an  outcast 
as  a  modern  inhabitant  of  Mecca  who  tried  to 
convince  his  compatriots  of  the  virtues  of  Euro- 
pean policy  and  social  order. 

Two  and  a  half  centuries  ago,  a  prominent  Ori- 
entalist,^ who  wrote  an  exposition  of  Moham- 
med's teaching,  felt  himself  obliged  to  give  an 

1  See  for  instance  the  reference  to  the  exposition  of  the  Paderborn 
bishop  Olovers  (1227)  in  the  Paderborn  review  Theologie  und  Glaube, 
Jahrg.  iv.,  p.  535,  etc.  (Islam,  iv.,  p.  186)  ;  also  some  of  the  accounts 
mentioned  in  Guterbock,  Der  Islam  im  Lichte  der  hyzantinischen 
Polemik,  etc. 

2  J.  H.  Hottinger,  Historia  Orientalis,  Ziirich,  1651  (2d  edition 
1660). 


i8  MOHAMMEDANISM 

elaborate  justification  of  his  undertaking  in  his 
''Dedicatio."  He  appeals  to  one  or  two  cele- 
brated predecessors  and  to  learned  colleagues, 
who  have  expressly  instigated  him  to  this  work. 
Amongst  other  things  he  quotes  a  letter  from 
the  Leiden  professor,  L'Empereur,  in  which  he 
conjures  Breitinger  by  the  bowels  of  Jesus  Christ 
("per  viscera  Jesu  Christi")  to  give  the  young 
man  every  opportunity  to  complete  his  study  of 
the  religion  of  Mohammed,  "which  so  far  has 
only  been  treated  in  a  senseless  way."  As  a  fruit 
of  this  study  L'Empereur  thinks  it  necessary  to 
mention  in  the  first  place  the  better  understand- 
ing of  the  (Christian)  Holy  Scriptures  by  the 
extension  of  our  knowledge  of  Oriental  manners 
and  customs.  Besides  such  promotion  of  Chris- 
tian exegesis  and  apologetics  and  the  improve- 
ment of  the  works  on  general  history,  Hottinger 
himself  contemplated  a  double  purpose  in  his  His- 
toria  Orientalis.  The  Roman  Catholics  often  vili- 
fied Protestantism  by  comparing  the  Reformed 
doctrine  to  that  of  Mohammedanism;  this  re- 
proach of  Cryptomohammedanism  Hottinger 
wished  "talionis  lege"  to  fling  back  at  the  Catho- 
lics; and  he  devotes  a  whole  chapter  (Cap.  6)  of 
his  book  to  the  demonstration  that  Bellarminius' 
proofs  of  the  truth  of  the  Church  doctrine  might 
have  been  copied  from  the  Moslim  dogma.  In 
the  second  place,  conforming  to  the  spirit  of  the 
times,  he  wished,  just  as  Bibliander  had  done  in 
his  refutation  of  the  Qoran,  to  combine  the  com- 


CONCERNING  THE  ORIGIN  OF  ISLAM  19 
bat  against  Mohammedan  unbelief  with  that 
against  the  Turkish  Empire  ("in  oppugnationem 
Mahometanas  perfidise  et  Turcici  regni"). 

The  Turks  were  feared  by  the  Europe  of  that 
time,  and  the  significance  of  their  religion  for 
their  worldly  power  was  well  known ;  thus  the  po- 
litical side  of  the  question  gave  Hottinger's  work 
a  special  claim  to  consideration.  Yet,  in  spite  of 
all  this,  Hottinger  feared  that  his  labour  would 
be  regarded  as  useless,  or  even  wicked.  Espe- 
cially when  he  is  obliged  to  say  anything  favour- 
able of  Mohammed  and  his  followers,  he  thinks  it 
necessary  to  protect  himself  against  misconstruc- 
tion by  the  addition  of  some  selected  terms  of 
abuse.  When  mentioning  Mohammed's  name,  he 
says:  ''at  the  mention  of  whom  the  mind  shud- 
ders" ("ad  cujus  profecto  mentionem  inhor- 
rescere  nobis  debet  animus"). 

The  learned  Abbe  Maracci,  who  in  1698  pro- 
duced a  Latin  translation  of  the  Qoran  accom- 
panied by  an  elaborate  refutation,  was  no  less 
than  Hottinger  imbued  with  the  necessity  of 
shuddering  at  every  mention  of  the  "false" 
Prophet,  and  Dr.  Prideaux,  whose  Vie  de  Mahomet 
appeared  in  the  same  year  in  Amsterdam,  abused 
and  shuddered  with  them,  and  held  up  his  biog- 
raphy of  Mohammed  as  a  mirror  to  "unbelievers, 
atheists,  deists,  and  libertines." 

It  was  a  Dutch  scholar,  H.  Reland,  the 
Utrecht  professor  of  theology,  who  in  the  begin- 
ning   of    the    eighteenth    century    frankly    and 


20  MOHAMMEDANISM 

warmly  recommended  the  application  of  histori- 
cal justice  even  towards  the  Mohammedan  re- 
ligion; in  his  short  Latin  sketch  of  Islam  ^  he 
allowed  the  Mohammedan  authorities  to  speak 
for  themselves.  In  his  ''Dedicatio"  to  his  brother 
and  in  his  extensive  preface  he  explains  his  then 
new  method.  Is  it  to  be  supposed,  he  asks,  that  a 
religion  as  ridiculous  as  the  Islam  described  by 
Christian  authors  should  have  found  millions  of 
devotees?  Let  the  Moslims  themselves  describe 
their  own  religion  for  us;  just  as  the  Jewish  and 
Christian  religions  are  falsely  represented  by  the 
heathen  and  Protestantism  by  Catholics,  so  every 
religion  is  misrepresented  by  its  antagonists. 
'"We  are  mortals,  subject  to  error;  especially 
where  religious  matters  are  concerned,  we  often 
allow  ourselves  to  be  grossly  misled  by  passion." 
Although  it  may  cause  evil-minded  readers  to 
doubt  the  writer's  orthodoxy  he  continues  to 
maintain  that  truth  can  only  be  served  by  com- 
bating her  opponents  in  an  honourable  way. 

*'No  religion,"  says  Reland,  "has  been  more 
calumniated  than  Islam,"  although  the  Abbe 
Maracci  himself  could  give  no  better  explanation 
of  the  turning  of  many  Jews  and  Christians  to 
this  religion  than  the  fact  that  it  contains  many 
elements  of  natural  truth,  evidently  borrowed 
from  the  Christian  religion,  "which  seem  to  be 
in  accordance  with  the  law  and  the  light  of  na- 

^H".   Relandi  de  religione  Mohammedica  libri  duo,   Utrecht,    1704 
(2d  ed.  1717). 


CONCERNING  THE  ORIGIN  OF  ISLAM     21 

ture"  (*'qu8e  naturae  legi  ac  lumini  consentanea 
videntur").  ''More  will  be  gained  for  Chris- 
tianity by  friendly  intercourse  with  Moham- 
medans than  by  slander;  above  all  Christians  who 
live  in  the  East  must  not,  as  is  too  often  the  case, 
give  cause  to  one  Turk  to  say  to  another  who 
suspects  him  of  lying  or  deceit:  'Do  you  take  me 
for  a  Christian?'  ('putasne  me  Christianum 
esse').  In  truth,  the  Mohammedans  often  put 
us  to  shame  by  their  virtues;  and  a  better  knowl- 
edge of  Islam  can  only  help  to  make  our  irra- 
tional pride  give  place  to  gratitude  to  God  for  the 
undeserved  mercy  which  He  bestowed  upon  us  in 
Christianity."  Reland  has  no  illusions  that  his 
scientific  justice  will  find  acceptance  in  a  wide 
circle  "as  he  becomes  daily  more  and  more  con- 
vinced that  the  world  wishes  to  be  deceived  and 
is  governed  by  prejudice"  C'qui  quotidie  magis 
magisque  experior  mundum  decipi  velle  et  prse- 
conceptis  opinionibus  regi"). 

It  was  not  long  before  the  scale  was  turned  in 
the  opposite  direction,  and  Islam  was  made  by 
some  people  the  object  of  panegyrics  as  devoid 
of  scientific  foundation  as  the  former  calumnies. 
In  1730  appeared  in  London  the  incomplete  pos- 
thumous work  of  Count  de  Boulainvilliers,  Vie  de 
Mahomet,  in  which,  amongst  other  things,  he  says 
of  the  Arabian  Prophet  that  "all  that  he  has  said 
concerning  the  essential  religious  dogmas  is  true, 
but  he  has  not  said  all  that  is  true,  and  it  is 
only  therein  that  his  religion  differs  from  ours." 


22  MOHAMMEDANISM 

De  Boulainvilliers  tells  us  with  particular  satis- 
faction that  Mohammed,  who  respected  the  devo- 
tion of  hermits  and  monks,  proceeded  with  the 
utmost  severity  against  the  official  clergy,  con- 
demning its  members  either  to  death  or  to  the 
abjuration  of  their  faith.  This  Vie  de  Mahomet 
was  as  a  matter  of  fact  an  anti-clerical  romance, 
the  material  of  which  was  supplied  by  a  super- 
ficial knowledge  of  Islam  drawn  from  secondary 
sources.  That  a  work  with  such  a  tendency  was 
sure  to  arouse  interest  at  that  time,  is  shown  by 
a  letter  from  the  publisher,  Coderc,  to  Professor 
Gagnier  at  Oxford,  in  which  he  writes:  "He  [de 
Boulainvilliers]  mixes  up  his  history  with  many 
political  reflections,  which  by  their  newness  and 
boldness  are  sure  to  be  well  received''  (''II  mele 
son  Histoire  de  plusieurs  reflexions  politiques,  et 
qui  par  leur  hardiesse  ne  manqueront  pas  d'etre 
tres  bien  regues"). 

Jean  Gagnier  however  considered  these  bold 
novelties  very  dangerous  and  endeavoured  to 
combat  them  in  another  Vie  de  Mahomet,  which 
appeared  from  his  hand  in  1748  at  Amsterdam. 
He  strives  after  a  "juste  milieu"  between  the  too 
violent  partisanship  of  Maracci  and  Prideaux  and 
the  ridiculous  acclamations  of  de  Boulainvilliers. 
Yet  this  does  not  prevent  him  in  his  preface  from 
calling  Mohammed  the  greatest  villain  of  man- 
kind and  the  most  mortal  enemy  of  God  ("le  plus 
scelerat  de  tous  les  hommes  et  le  plus  mortel 
ennemi  de  Dieu").     His  desire  to  make  his  con- 


CONCERNING  THE  ORIGIN  OF  ISLAM     23 

temporaries  proof  against  the  poison  of  de  Bou- 
lainvilliers'  dangerous  book  gains  the  mastery 
over  the  pure  love  of  truth  for  which  Reland  had 
so  bravely  striven. 

Although  Sale  in  his  "Preliminary  Discourse" 
to  his  translation  of  the  Qoran  endeavours  to 
contribute  to  a  fair  estimation  of  Mohammed 
and  his  work,  of  which  his  motto  borrowed  from 
Augustine,  ''There  is  no  false  doctrine  that  does 
not  contain  some  truth"  ("nulla  falsa  doctrina 
est  quae  non  aliquid  veri  permisceat"),  is  proof, 
still  the  prejudicial  view  remained  for  a  consider- 
able time  the  prevalent  one.  Mohammed  was 
branded  as  imposteur  even  in  circles  where  Chris- 
tian fanaticism  was  out  of  the  question.  Voltaire 
did  not  write  his  tragedy  Mahomet  ou  le  janatisme 
as  a  historical  study;  he  was  aware  that  his  fic- 
tion was  in  many  respects  at  variance  with  his- 
tory. In  writing  this  work  he  was,  as  he  himself 
expresses  it,  inspired  by  'Tamour  du  genre  hu- 
main  et  Thorreur  du  fanatisme."  He  wanted  to 
put  before  the  public  an  armed  Tartufe  and 
thought  he  might  lay  the  part  upon  Moham- 
med, for,  says  he,  "is  not  the  man,  who  makes 
war  against  his  own  country  and  dares  to  do  it  in 
the  name  of  God,  capable  of  any  ill?"  The  dis- 
like that  Voltaire  had  conceived  for  the  Qoran 
from  a  superficial  acquaintance  with  it,  "ce  livre 
inintelligible  qui  fait  fremir  le  sens  commun  a 
chaque  page,"  probably  increased  his  unfavour- 
able  opinion,    but   the   principal   motive   of   his 


24  MOHAMMEDANISM 

choice  of  a  representative  must  have  been  that 
the  general  public  still  regarded  Mohammed  as 
the  incarnation  of  fanaticism  and  priestcraft. 

Almost  a  century  lies  between  Gagnier's  biog- 
raphy of  Mohammed  and  that  of  the  Heidelberg 
professor  Weil  {Mohammed  der  Prophet j  sein 
Leben  und  siene  Lehre,  Stuttgart,  1843)  5  3,nd  yet 
Weil  did  well  to  call  Gagnier  his  last  independent 
predecessor.  WeiFs  great  merit  is,  that  he  is  the 
first  in  his  field  who  instituted  an  extensive  his- 
torico-critical  investigation  without  any  precon- 
ceived opinion.  His  final  opinion  of  Mohammed 
is,  with  the  necessary  reservations:  "In  so  far  as 
he  brought  the  most  beautiful  teachings  of  the 
Old  and  the  New  Testament  to  a  people  which 
was  not  illuminated  by  one  ray  of  faith,  he  may 
be  regarded,  even  by  those  who  are  not  Moham- 
medans, as  a  messenger  of  God."  Four  years 
later  Caussin  de  Perceval  in  his  Essai  sur  Vhis- 
toire  des  Arabes,  written  quite  independently  of 
Weil,  expresses  the  same  idea  in  these  words: 
"It  would  be  an  injustice  to  Mohammed  to  con- 
sider him  as  no  more  than  a  clever  impostor,  an 
ambitious  man  of  genius;  he  was  in  the  first  place 
a  man  convinced  of  his  vocation  to  deliver  his 
nation  from  error  and  to  regenerate  it." 

About  twenty  years  later  the  biography  of 
Mohammed  made  an  enormous  advance  through 
the  works  of  Muir,  Sprenger,  and  Noldeke.  On 
the  ground  of  much  wider  and  at  the  same  time 
deeper  study  of  the  sources  than  had  been  pos- 


CONCERNING  THE  ORIGIN  OF  ISLAM  25 
sible  for  Weil  and  Caussin  de  Perceval,  each  of 
these  three  scholars  gave  in  his  own  way  an  ac- 
count of  the  origin  of  Islam.  Noldeke  was  much 
sharper  and  more  cautious  in  his  historical  criti- 
cism than  Muir  or  Sprenger.  While  the  biogra- 
phies written  by  these  two  men  have  now  only 
historical  value,  Noldeke's  History  of  the  Qordn  is 
still  an  indispensable  instrument  of  study  more 
than  half  a  century  after  its  first  appearance. 

Numbers  of  more  or  less  successful  efforts  to 
make  Mohammed's  life  understood  by  the  nine- 
teenth century  intellect  have  followed  these  with- 
out much  permanent  gain.  Mohammed,  who  was 
represented  to  the  public  in  turn  as  deceiver,  as  a 
genius  misled  by  the  Devil,  an  epileptic,  as  hys- 
teric, and  as  prophet,  was  obliged  later  on  even  to 
submit  to  playing  on  the  one  hand  the  part  of 
socialist  and,  on  the  other  hand,  that  of  a  de- 
fender of  capitalism.  These  points  of  view  were 
principally  characteristic  of  the  temperament  of 
the  scholars  who  held  them;  they  did  not  really 
advance  our  understanding  of  the  events  that 
took  place  at  Mecca  and  Medina  between  610  and 
632  A.D.,  that  prologue  to  a  perplexing  historical 
drama. 

The  principal  source  from  which  all  biogra- 
phers started  and  to  which  they  always  returned, 
was  the  Qoran,  the  collection  of  words  of  Allah 
spoken  by  Mohammed  in  those  twenty-two  years. 
Hardly  anyone,  amongst  the  ''faithful"  and  the 
"unfaithful,"  doubts  the  generally  authentic  char- 


26  MOHAMMEDANISM 

acter  of  its  contents  except  the  Parisian  professor 
Casanova.^  He  tried  to  prove  a  little  while  ago 
that  Mohammed's  revelations  originally  con- 
tained the  announcement  that  the  hour,  the 
final  catastrophe,  the  Last  Judgment  v^ould  come 
during  his  life.  When  his  death  had  therefore 
falsified  this  prophecy,  according  to  Casanova, 
the  leaders  of  the  young  community  found  them- 
selves obliged  to  submit  the  revelations  preserved 
in  writing  or  memory  to  a  thorough  revision,  to 
add  some  which  announced  the  mortality  even 
of  the  last  prophet,  and,  finally  to  console  the  dis- 
appointed faithful  with  the  hope  of  Mohammed's 
return  before  the  end  of  the  world.  This  doctrine 
of  the  return,  mentioned  neither  in  the  Qoran  nor 
in  the  eschatological  tradition  of  later  times, 
according  to  Casanova  was  afterwards  changed 
again  into  the  expectation  of  the  Mahdi,  the  last 
of  Mohammed's  deputies,  ''a  Guided  of  God," 
who  shall  be  descended  from  Mohammed,  bear 
his  name,  resemble  him  in  appearance,  and  who 
shall  fill  the  world  once  more  before  its  end  with 
justice,  as  it  is  now  filled  with  injustice  and 
tyranny. 

In  our  sceptical  times  there  is  very  little  that 
is  above  criticism,  and  one  day  or  other  we  may 
expect  to  hear  that  Mohammed  never  existed. 

1  Paul  Casanova,  Mohammed  et  la  fin  du  monde,  Paris,  1911.  His 
hypotheses  are  founded  upon  Weil's  doubts  of  the  authenticity  of  a 
few  verses  of  the  Qordn  (iii.,  138;  xxxix.,  31,  etc.),  which  doubts 
were  sufficiently  refuted  half  a  century  ago  by  Nodeke  in  his  Ge- 
schichtes  des  Qordns,  ist  edition,  p.  197,  etc. 


CONCERNING  THE  ORIGIN  OF  ISLAM     27 

The  arguments  for  this  can  hardly  be  weaker  than 
those  of  Casanova  against  the  authenticity  of  the 
Qoran.  Here  we  may  acknowledge  the  great 
power  of  what  has  been  believed  in  all  times,  in 
all  places,  by  all  the  members  of  the  community 
("quod  semper,  quod  ubique,  quod  ab  omnibus 
creditum  est").  For,  after  the  death  of  Moham- 
med there  immediately  arose  a  division  which 
none  of  the  leading  personalities  were  able  to 
escape,  and  the  opponents  spared  each  other  no 
possible  kind  of  insult,  scorn,  or  calumny.  The 
enemies  of  the  first  leaders  of  the  community 
could  have  wished  for  no  more  powerful  weapon 
for  their  attack  than  a  well-founded  accusation 
of  falsifying  the  word  of  God.  Yet  this  accusa- 
tion was  never  brought  against  the  first  collectors 
of  the  scattered  revelations;  the  only  reproach 
that  was  made  against  them  in  connexion 
with  this  labour  being  that  verses  in  which  the 
Holy  Family  (Ali  and  Fatimah)  were  mentioned 
with  honour,  and  which,  therefore,  would  have 
served  to  support  the  claims  of  the  Alids  to  the 
succession  of  Mohammed,  were  suppressed  by 
them.  This  was  maintained  by  the  Shi'ites,  who 
are  unsurpassed  in  Islam  as  falsifiers  of  history; 
and  the  passages  which,  according  to  them,  are 
omitted  from  the  official  Qoran  would  involve 
precisely  an  account  of  their  reference  to  the  suc- 
cession, the  mortality  of  Mohammed. 

All  sects  and  parties  have  the  same  text  of  the 
Qoran.     This  may  have  its  errors  and  defects, 


28  MOHAMMEDANISM 

but  intentional  alterations  or  mutilations  of  real 
importance  are  not  to  blame  for  this. 

Now  this  rich  authentic  source — this  collection 
of  wild,  poetic  representations  of  the  Day  of 
Judgment;  of  striving  against  idolatry;  of  stories 
from  Sacred  History;  of  exhortation  to  the  prac- 
tice of  the  cardinal  virtues  of  the  Old  and  New 
Testament;  of  precepts  to  reform  the  individual, 
domestic,  and  tribal  life  in  the  spirit  of  these  vir- 
tues; of  incantations  and  forms  of  prayer  and  a 
hundred  things  besides — is  not  always  compre- 
hensible to  us.  Even  for  the  parts  which  we 
do  understand,  we  are  not  able  to  make  out  the 
chronological  arrangement  which  is  necessary  to 
gain  an  insight  into  Mohammed's  personality  and 
work.  This  is  not  only  due  to  the  form  of  the 
oracles,  which  purposely  differs  from  the  usual 
tone  of  mortals  by  its  unctuousness  and  rhymed 
prose,  but  even  more  to  the  circumstance  that  all 
that  the  hearers  could  know,  is  assumed  to  be 
known.  So  the  Qoran  is  full  of  references  that 
are  enigmatical  to  us.  We  therefore  need  addi- 
tional explanation,  and  this  can  only  be  derived 
from  tradition  concerning  the  circumstances 
under  which  each  revelation  was  delivered. 

And,  truly,  the  sacred  tradition  of  Islam  is  not 
deficient  in  data  of  this  sort.  In  the  canonical 
and  half-canonical  collections  of  tradition  con- 
cerning what  the  Prophet  has  said,  done,  and 
omitted  to  do,  in  biographical  works,  an  answer 
is  given  to  every  question  which  may  arise  in  the 


CONCERNING  THE  ORIGIN  OF  ISLAM     29 

mind  of  the  reader  of  the  Qoran;  and  there  are 
many  Qoran-commentaries,  in  which  these  an- 
swers are  appended  to  the  verses  which  they  are 
supposed  to  elucidate.  Sometimes  the  explana- 
tions appear  to  us,  even  at  first  sight,  improbable 
and  unacceptable;  sometimes  they  contradict 
each  other;  a  good  many  seem  quite  reasonable. 

The  critical  biographers  of  Mohammed  have 
therefore  begun  their  work  of  sifting  by  eliminat- 
ing the  improbable  and  by  choosing  between  con- 
tradictory data  by  means  of  critical  comparison. 
Here  the  gradually  increasing  knowledge  of  the 
spirit  of  the  different  parties  in  Islam  was  an  im- 
portant aid,  as  of  course  each  group  represented 
the  facts  in  the  way  which  best  served  their  own 
purposes. 

However  cautiously  and  acutely  Weil  and  his 
successors  have  proceeded,  the  continual  progress 
of  the  analysis  of  the  legislative  as  well  as  of  the 
historical  tradition  of  Islam  since  1870  has  neces- 
sitated a  renewed  investigation.  In  the  first 
place  it  has  become  ever  more  evident  that  the 
thousands  of  traditions  about  Mohammed,  which, 
together  with  the  Qoran,  form  the  foundation 
upon  which  the  doctrine  and  life  of  the  com- 
munity are  based,  are  for  the  most  part  the  con- 
ventional expression  of  all  the  opinions  which 
prevailed  amongst  his  followers  during  the  first 
three  centuries  after  the  Hijrah.  The  fiction 
originated  a  long  time  after  Mohammed's  death; 
during  the  turbulent  period  of  the  great  con- 


30  MOHAMMEDANISM 

quests  there  was  no  leisure  for  such  work.  Our 
own  conventional  insincerities  differ  so  much — 
externally  at  least — from  those  of  that  date,  that 
it  is  difficult  for  us  to  realize  a  spiritual  atmos- 
phere where  "pious  fraud"  was  practised  on  such 
a  scale.  Yet  this  is  literally  true :  in  the  first  cen- 
turies of  Islam  no  one  could  have  dreamt  of  any 
other  way  of  gaining  acceptance  for  a  doctrine 
or  a  precept  than  by  circulating  a  tradition,  ac- 
cording to  which  Mohammed  had  preached  the 
doctrine  or  dictated  it  or  had  lived  according  to 
the  precept.  The  whole  individual,  domestic,  so- 
cial, and  political  life  as  it  developed  in  the  three 
centuries  during  which  the  simple  Arabian  re- 
ligion was  adjusted  to  the  complicated  civiliza- 
tion of  the  great  nations  of  that  time,  that  all 
life  was  theoretically  justified  by  representing  it 
as  the  application  of  minute  laws  supposed  to 
have  been  elaborated  by  Mohammed  by  precept 
and  example. 

Thus  tradition  gives  invaluable  material  for 
the  knowledge  of  the  conflict  of  opinions  in  the 
first  centuries,  a  strife  the  sharpness  of  which  has 
been  blunted  in  later  times  by  a  most  resourceful 
harmonistic  method.  But,  it  is  vain  to  endeavour 
to  construct  the  life  and  teaching  of  Mohammed 
from  such  spurious  accounts;  they  cannot  even 
afford  us  a  reliable  illustration  of  his  life  in  the 
form  of  "table  talk,"  as  an  English  scholar  rather 
naively  tried  to  derive  from  them.  In  a  collection 
of  this  sort,  supported  by  good  external  evidence, 


CONCERNING  THE  ORIGIN  OF  ISLAM     31 

there  would  be  attributed  to  the  Prophet  of 
Mecca  sayings  from  the  Old  and  New  Testament, 
wise  saws  from  classical  and  Arabian  antiquity, 
prescriptions  of  Roman  law  and  many  other 
things,  each  text  of  which  was  as  authentic  as  its 
fellows. 

Anyone  who,  warned  by  Goldziher  and  others, 
has  realized  how  matters  stand  in  this  respect, 
will  be  careful  not  to  take  the  legislative  tradition 
as  a  direct  instrument  for  the  explanation  of  the 
Qoran.  When,  after  a  most  careful  investigation 
of  thousands  of  traditions  which  all  appear 
equally  old,  we  have  selected  the  oldest,  then  we 
shall  see  that  we  have  before  us  only  witnesses  of 
the  first  century  of  the  Hijrah.  The  connecting 
threads  with  the  time  of  Mohammed  must  be  sup- 
plied for  a  great  part  by  imagination. 

The  historical  or  biographical  tradition  in  the 
proper  sense  of  the  word  has  only  lately  been  sub- 
mitted to  a  keener  examination.  It  was  known 
for  a  long  time  that  here  too,  besides  theological 
and  legendary  elements,  there  were  traditions 
originating  from  party  motive,  intended  to  give 
an  appearance  of  historical  foundation  to  the  par- 
ticular interests  of  certain  persons  or  families; 
but  it  was  thought  that  after  some  sifting  there 
yet  remained  enough  to  enable  us  to  form  a  much 
clearer  sketch  of  Mohammed's  life  than  that  of 
any  other  of  the  founders  of  a  universal  religion. 

It  is  especially  Prince  Caetani  and  Father 
Lammens  who  have  disturbed  this  illusion.    Ac- 


32  MOHAMMEDANISM 

cording  to  them,  even  the  data  which  had  been 
pretty  generally  regarded  as  objective,  rest 
chiefly  upon  tendentious  fiction.  The  genera- 
tions that  worked  at  the  biography  of  the  Prophet 
were  too  far  removed  from  his  time  to  have  true 
data  or  notions;  and,  moreover,  it  was  not  their 
aim  to  know  the  past  as  it  was,  but  to  construct 
a  picture  of  it  as  it  ought  to  have  been  according 
to  their  opinion.  Upon  the  bare  canvas  of 
verses  to  the  Qoran  that  need  explanation,  the 
traditionists  have  embroidered  with  great  bold- 
ness scenes  suitable  to  the  desires  or  ideals  of 
their  particular  group;  or,  to  use  a  favourite 
metaphor  of  Lammens,  they  fill  the  empty  spaces 
by  a  process  of  stereotyping  which  permits  the 
critical  observer  to  recognize  the  origin  of  each 
picture.  In  the  Sirah  (biography),  the  distance 
of  the  first  describers  from  their  object  is  the 
same  as  in  the  Hadith  (legislative  tradition) ; 
in  both  we  get  images  of  very  distant  things,  per- 
ceived by  means  of  fancy  rather  than  by  sight 
and  taking  different  shapes  according  to  the  in- 
clinations of  each  circle  of  describers. 

Now,  it  may  be  true  that  the  latest  judges  have 
here  and  there  examined  the  Mohammedan  tra- 
ditions too  sceptically  and  too  suspiciously; 
nevertheless,  it  remains  certain  that  in  the  light 
of  their  research,  the  method  of  examination  can- 
not remain  unchanged.  We  must  endeavour  to 
make  our  explanations  of  the  Qoran  independent 
of  tradition,  and  in  respect  to  portions  where  this 


CONCERNING  THE  ORIGIN  OF  ISLAM     33 

is  impossible,  we  must  be  suspicious  of  explana- 
tions, however  apparently  plausible. 

During  the  last  few  years  the  accessible  sources 
of  information  have  considerably  increased,  the 
study  of  them  has  become  much  deeper  and  more 
methodical,  and  the  result  is  that  we  can  tell 
much  less  about  the  teaching  and  the  life  of 
Mohammed  than  could  our  predecessors  half  a 
century  ago.  This  apparent  loss  is  of  course  in 
reality  nothing  but  gain. 

Those  who  do  not  take  part  in  new  discoveries, 
nevertheless,  wish  to  know  now  and  then  the  re- 
sults of  the  observations  made  with  constantly 
improved  instruments.  Let  me  endeavour,  very 
briefly,  to  satisfy  this  curiosity.  That  the  report 
of  the  bookkeeping  might  make  a  somewhat  dif- 
ferent impression  if  another  accountant  had  ex- 
amined it,  goes  without  saying,  and  sometimes  I 
shall  draw  particular  attention  to  my  personal 
responsibility  in  this  respect. 

Of  Mohammed's  life  before  his  appearance  as 
the  messenger  of  God,  we  know  extremely  little; 
compared  to  the  legendary  biography  as  treas- 
ured by  the  Faithful,  practically  nothing.  Not  to 
mention  his  pre-existence  as  a  Light,  which  was 
with  God,  and  for  the  sake  of  which  God  created 
the  world,  the  Light,  which  as  the  principle  of 
revelation,  lived  in  all  prophets  from  Adam  on- 
wards, and  the  final  revelation  of  which  in  Mo- 
hammed was  prophesied  in  the  Scriptures  of  the 
Jews  and  the  Christians;  not  to  mention  the  won- 


34  MOHAMMEDANISM 

derful  and  mysterious  signs  which  announced  the 
birth  of  the  Seal  of  the  Prophets,  and  many  other 
features  which  the  later  Sirahs  (biographies)  and 
Maulids  (pious  histories  of  his  birth,  most  in 
rhymed  prose  or  in  poetic  metre)  produce  in  imi- 
tation of  the  Gospels;  even  the  elaborate  dis- 
courses of  the  older  biographies  on  occurrences, 
which  in  themselves  might  quite  well  come  within 
the  limits  of  sublunary  possibility,  do  not  belong 
to  history.  Fiction  plays  such  a  great  part  in 
these  stories,  that  we  are  never  sure  of  being  on 
historical  ground  unless  the  Qoran  gives  us  a  firm 
footing. 

The  question,  whether  the  family  to  which 
Mohammed  belonged,  was  regarded  as  noble 
amongst  the  Qoraishites,  the  ruling  tribe  in 
Mecca,  is  answered  in  the  affirmative  by  many; 
but  by  others  this  answer  is  questioned  not  with- 
out good  grounds.  The  matter  is  not  of  prime 
importance,  as  there  is  no  doubt  that  Mohammed 
grew  up  as  a  poor  orphan  and  belonged  to  the 
needy  and  the  neglected.  Even  a  long  time  after 
his  first  appearance  the  unbelievers  reproached 
him,  according  to  the  Qoran,  with  his  insignifi- 
cant worldly  position,  which  fitted  ill  with  a  heav- 
enly message;  the  same  scornful  reproach  ac- 
cording to  the  Qoran  was  hurled  at  Mohammed's 
predecessors  by  sceptics  of  earlier  generations; 
and  it  is  well  known  that  the  stories  of  older 
times  in  the  Qoran  are  principally  reflections 
of  what  Mohammed  himself  experienced.     The 


CONCERNING  THE  ORIGIN  OF  ISLAM     35 

legends  of  Mohammed's  relation  to  various  mem- 
bers of  his  family  are  too  closely  connected  with 
the  pretensions  of  their  descendants  to  have  any 
value  for  biographic  purposes.  He  married  late 
an  elderly  woman,  who,  it  is  said,  was  able  to 
lighten  his  material  cares;  she  gave  him  the  only 
daughter  by  whom  he  had  descendants;  descend- 
ants, who,  from  the  Arabian  point  of  view,  do 
not  count  as  such,  as  according  to  their  genea- 
logical theories  the  line  of  descent  cannot  pass 
through  a  woman.  They  have  made  an  excep- 
tion for  the  Prophet,  as  male  offspring,  the  only 
blessing  of  marriage  appreciated  by  Arabs,  was 
withheld  from  him. 

In  the  materialistic  commercial  town  of  Mecca, 
where  lust  of  gain  and  usury  reigned  supreme, 
where  women,  wine,  and  gambling  filled  up  the 
leisure  time,  where  might  was  right,  and  widows, 
orphans,  and  the  feeble  were  treated  as  superflu- 
ous ballast,  an  unfortunate  being  like  Moham- 
med, if  his  constitution  were  sensitive,  must  have 
experienced  most  painful  emotions.  In  the  intel- 
lectual advantages  that  the  place  offered  he  could 
find  no  solace;  the  highly  developed  Arabian  art 
of  words,  poetry  with  its  fictitious  amourettes, 
its  polished  descriptions  of  portions  of  Arabian 
nature,  its  venal  vain  praise  and  satire,  might 
serve  as  dessert  to  a  well-filled  dish;  they  were 
unable  to  compensate  for  the  lack  of  material 
prosperity.  Mohammed  felt  his  misery  as  a  pain 
too  great  to  be  endured;  in  some  way  or  other  he 


36  MOHAMMEDANISM 

must  be  delivered  from  it.  He  desired  to  be  more 
than  the  greatest  in  his  surroundings,  and  he 
knew  that  in  that  which  they  counted  for  happi- 
ness he  could  never  even  equal  them.  Rather 
than  envy  them  regretfully,  he  preferred  to  de- 
spise their  values  of  life,  but  on  that  very  account 
he  had  to  oppose  these  values  with  better  ones. 

It  was  not  unknown  in  Mecca  that  elsewhere 
communities  existed  acquainted  with  such  high 
ideals  of  life,  spiritual  goods  accessible  to  the 
poor,  even  to  them  in  particular.  Apart  from 
commerce,  which  brought  the  inhabitants  of 
Mecca  into  contact  with  Abyssinians,  Syrians, 
and  others,  there  were  far  to  the  south  and  less 
far  to  the  north  and  north-east  of  Mecca,  Arabian 
tribes  who  had  embraced  the  Jewish  or  the  Chris- 
tion  religion.  Perhaps  this  circumstance  had 
helped  to  make  the  inhabitants  of  Mecca  familiar 
with  the  idea  of  a  creator,  Allah,  but  this  had 
little  significance  in  their  lives,  as  in  the  Maker 
of  the  Universe  they  did  not  see  their  Lawgiver 
and  Judge,  but  held  themselves  dependent  for 
their  good  and  evil  fortune  upon  all  manner  of 
beings,  which  they  rendered  favourable  or  harm- 
less by  animistic  practices.  Thoroughly  conserv- 
ative, they  did  not  take  great  interest  in  the 
conceptions  of  the  "People  of  the  Scripture,"  as 
they  called  the  Jews,  Christians,  and  perhaps 
some  other  sects  arisen  from  these  communities. 

But  Mohammed's  deeply  felt  misery  awakened 
his  interest  in  them.    Whether  this  had  been  the 


CONCERNING  THE  ORIGIN  OF  ISLAM     ij 

case  with  a  few  others  before  him  in  the  milieu 
of  Mecca,  we  need  not  consider,  as  it  does  not 
help  to  explain  his  actions.  If  wide  circles  had 
been  anxious  to  know  more  about  the  contents  of 
the  "Scripture"  Mohammed  would  not  have  felt 
in  the  dark  in  the  way  that  he  did.  We  shall 
probably  never  know,  by  intercourse  with  whom 
it  really  was  that  Mohammed  at  last  gained  some 
knowledge  of  the  contents  of  the  sacred  books 
of  Judaism  and  Christianity;  probably  through 
various  people,  and  over  a  considerable  length  of 
time.  It  was  not  lettered  men  who  satisfied  his 
awakened  curiosity;  otherwise  the  quite  confused 
ideas,  especially  in  the  beginning  of  the  revela- 
tion, concerning  the  mutual  relations  between 
Jews  and  Christians  could  not  be  explained. 
Confusions  between  Miryam,  the  sister  of  Moses, 
and  Mary,  the  mother  of  Jesus,  between  Saul  and 
Gideon,  mistakes  about  the  relationship  of  Abra- 
ham to  Isaac,  Ishmael,  and  Jacob,  might  be  put 
down  to  misconceptions  of  Mohammed  himself, 
who  could  not  all  at  once  master  the  strange  ma- 
terial. But  his  representation  of  Judaism  and 
Christianity  and  a  number  of  other  forms  of  reve- 
lation, as  almost  identical  in  their  contents,  differ- 
ing only  in  the  place  where,  the  time  wherein,  and 
the  messenger  of  God  by  whom  they  came  to 
man;  this  idea,  which  runs  like  a  crimson  thread 
through  all  the  revelations  of  the  first  twelve 
years  of  Mohammed's  prophecy,  could  not  have 
existed  if  he  had  had  an  intimate  acquaintance 


38  MOHAMMEDANISM 

with  Jewish  or  Christian  men  of  letters.  More- 
over, the  many  post-biblical  features  and  stories 
which  the  Qoran  contains  concerning  the  past  of 
mankind,  indicate  a  vulgar  origin,  and  especially 
as  regards  the  Christian  legends,  communications 
from  people  who  lived  outside  the  communion  of 
the  great  Christian  churches;  this  is  sufficiently 
proved  by  the  docetical  representation  of  the 
death  of  Jesus  and  the  many  stories  about  his  life, 
taken  from  apocryphal  sources  or  from  popular 
oral  legends. 

Mohammed's  unlearned  imagination  worked 
all  such  material  together  into  a  religious  history 
of  mankind,  in  which  Adam's  descendants  had 
become  divided  into  innumerable  groups  of  peo- 
ples differing  in  speech  and  place  of  abode,  whose 
aim  in  life  at  one  period  or  another  came  to  re- 
semble wonderfully  that  of  the  inhabitants  of 
West-  and  Central- Arabia  in  the  seventh  century 
A.D.  Hereby  they  strayed  from  the  true  path, 
in  strife  with  the  commands  given  by  Allah.  The 
whole  of  history,  therefore,  was  for  him  a  long 
series  of  repetitions  of  the  antithesis  between  the 
foolishness  of  men,  as  this  was  now  embodied  in 
the  social  state  of  Mecca,  and  the  wisdom  of  God, 
as  known  to  the  'Teople  of  the  Scripture."  To 
bring  the  erring  ones  back  to  the  true  path,  it  was 
Allah's  plan  to  send  them  messengers  from  out 
of  their  midst,  who  delivered  His  ritual  and  His 
moral  directions  to  them  in  His  own  words,  who 
demanded  the  acknowledgment  of  Allah's  om- 


CONCERNING  THE  ORIGIN  OF  ISLAM     39 

nipotence,  and  if  they  refused  to  follow  the  true 
guidance,  threatened  them  with  Allah's  tem- 
porary or,  even  more,  with  His  eternal  punish- 
ment. 

The  antithesis  is  always  the  same,  from  Adam 
to  Jesus,  and  the  enumeration  of  the  scenes  is 
therefore  rather  monotonous;  the  only  variety  is 
in  the  detail,  borrowed  from  biblical  and  apoc- 
ryphal legends.  In  all  the  thousands  of  years 
the  messengers  of  Allah  play  the  same  part  as 
Mohammed  finally  saw  himself  called  upon  to 
play  towards  his  people. 

Mohammed's  account  of  the  past  contains 
more  elements  of  Jewish  than  of  Christian  origin, 
and  he  ignores  the  principal  dogmas  of  the  Chris- 
tian Church.  In  spite  of  his  supernatural  birth, 
Jesus  is  only  a  prophet  like  Moses  and  others; 
and  although  his  miracles  surpass  those  of  other 
messengers,  Mohammed  at  a  later  period  of  his 
life  is  inclined  to  place  Abraham  above  Jesus  in 
certain  respects.  Yet  the  influence  of  Christian- 
ity upon  Mohammed's  vocation  was  very  great; 
without  the  Christian  idea  of  the  final  scene  of 
human  history,  of  the  Resurrection  of  the  dead 
and  the  Last  Judgment,  Mohammed's  mission 
would  have  no  meaning.  It  is  true,  monotheism, 
in  the  Jewish  sense,  and  after  the  contrast  had 
become  clear  to  Mohammed,  accompanied  by  an 
express  rejection  of  the  Son  of  God  and  of  the 
Trinity,  has  become  one  of  the  principal  dogmas 
of  Islam.     But  in  Mohammed's  first  preaching. 


40  MOHAMMEDANISM 

the  announcement  of  the  Day  of  Judgment  is 
much  more  prominent  than  the  Unity  of  God; 
and  it  was  against  his  revelations  concerning 
Doomsday  that  his  opponents  directed  their 
satire  during  the  first  twelve  years.  It  was  not 
love  of  their  half-dead  gods  but  anger  at  the 
wretch  who  was  never  tired  of  telling  them,  in 
the  name  of  Allah,  that  all  their  life  was  idle  and 
despicable,  that  in  the  other  world  they  would  be 
outcasts,  which  opened  the  floodgates  of  irony 
and  scorn  against  Mohammed.  And  it  was  Mo- 
hammed's anxiety  for  his  own  lot  and  that  of 
those  who  were  dear  to  him  in  that  future  life, 
that  forced  him  to  seek  a  solution  of  the  question: 
who  shall  bring  my  people  out  of  the  darkness 
of  antithesis  into  the  light  of  obedience  to  Allah? 
We  should,  a  posteriori,  be  inclined  to  imagine  a 
simpler  answer  to  the  question  than  that  which 
Mohammed  found ;  he  might  have  become  a  mis- 
sionary of  Judaism  or  of  Christianity  to  the  Mec- 
cans.  However  natural  such  a  conclusion  may 
appear  to  us,  from  the  premises  with  which  we 
are  acquainted,  it  did  not  occur  to  Mohammed. 
He  began — the  Qoran  tells  us  expressly — by  re- 
garding the  Arabs,  or  at  all  events  his  Arabs,  as 
heretofore  destitute  of  divine  message^:  "to 
whom  We  have  sent  no  warner  before  you." 
Moses  and  Jesus — not  to  mention  any  others — 
had  not  been  sent  for  the  Arabs;  and  as  Allah 
would  not  leave  any  section  of  mankind  without 

1  Qordn,  xxxii.,  xxxiv.,  43 ;  xxxvi.,  5,  etc. 


CONCERNING  THE  ORIGIN  OF  ISLAM     41 

a  revelation,  their  prophet  must  still  be  to  come. 
Apparently  Mohammed  reg'arded  the  Jewish  and 
Christian  tribes  in  Arabia  as  exceptions  to  the  rule 
that  an  ethnical  group  (ummah)  was  at  the  same 
time  a  religious  unity.  He  did  not  imagine  that 
it  could  be  in  Allah's  plan  that  the  Arabs  were  to 
conform  to  a  revelation  given  in  a  foreign  lan- 
guage. No;  Bod  must  speak  to  them  in  Arabic. "^ 
Through  whose  mouth? 

A  long  and  severe  crisis  preceded  Mohammed's 
call.  He  was  convinced  that,  if  he  were  the  man, 
mighty  signs  from  Heaven  must  be  revealed  to 
him,  for  his  conception  of  revelation  was  me- 
chanical; Allah  Himself,  or  at  least  angels,  must 
speak  to  him.  The  time  of  waiting,  the  process 
of  objectifying  the  subjective,  lived  through  by 
the  help  of  an  overstrained  imagination,  all  this 
laid  great  demands  upon  the  psychical  and  physi- 
cal constitution  of  Mohammed.  At  length  he 
saw  and  heard  that  which  he  thought  he  ought  to 
hear  and  see.  In  feverish  dreams  he  found  the 
form  for  the  revelation,  and  he  did  not  in  the 
least  realize  that  the  contents  of  his  inspiration 
from  Heaven  were  nothing  but  the  result  of  what 
he  had  himself  absorbed.  He  realized  it  so  little, 
that  the  identity  of  what  was  revealed  to  him 
with  what  he  held  to  be  the  contents  of  the  Scrip- 
tures of  Jews  and  Christians  was  a  miracle  to 
him,  the  only  miracle  upon  which  he  relied  for  the 
support  of  his  mission. 

^Ibid.,  xii.,  2;  xiii.,  37;  xx.,  112;  xxvi.,  195;  xli.,  44,  etc. 


42  MOHAMMEDANISM 

In  the  course  of  the  twenty-three  years  of 
Mohammed's  work  as  God's  messenger,  the  over- 
excited state,  or  inspiration,  or  whatever  we  may 
call  the  peculiar  spiritual  condition  in  which  his 
revelation  was  born,  gradually  gave  place  to  quiet 
reflection.  Especially  after  the  Hijrah,  when  the 
Prophet  had  to  provide  the  state  established  by 
him  at  Medina  with  inspired  regulations,  the 
words  of  God  became  in  almost  every  respect  dif- 
ferent from  what  they  had  been  at  first.  Only 
the  form  was  retained.  In  connection  with  this 
evolution  some  of  our  biographers  of  Moham- 
med, even  where  they  do  not  deny  the  obvious 
honesty  of  his  first  visions,  represent  him  in  the 
second  half  of  his  work,  as  a  sort  of  actor,  who 
played  with  that  which  had  been  most  sacred  to 
him.    This  accusation  is,  in  my  opinion,  unjust. 

Mohammed,  who  twelve  years  long,  in  spite  of 
derision  and  contempt,  continued  to  inveigh  in 
the  name  of  Allah  against  the  frivolous  conserva- 
tism of  the  heathens  in  Mecca,  to  preach  Allah's 
omnipotence  to  them,  to  hold  up  to  them  Allah's 
commands  and  His  promises  and  threats  regard- 
ing the  future  life,  ^'without  asking  any  reward" 
for  such  exhausting  work,  is  really  not  another 
man  than  the  acknowledged  "Messenger  of 
Allah"  in  Medina,  who  saw  his  power  gradually 
increase,  who  was  taught  by  experience  the 
value  and  the  use  of  the  material  means  of  ex- 
tending it,  and  who,  finally,  by  the  force  of  arms 


CONCERNING  THE  ORIGIN  OF  ISLAM     43 

compelled  all  Arabs  to  "obedience  to  Allah  and 
His  messenger." 

In  our  own  society,  real  enthusiasm  in  the 
propagation  of  an  idea  generally  considered  as 
absurd,  if  crowned  by  success  may,  in  the  course 
of  time,  end  in  cold,  prosaic  calculation  without 
a  trace  of  hypocrisy.  Nowhere  in  the  life  of 
Mohammed  can  a  point  of  turning  be  shown; 
there  is  a  gradual  changing  of  aims  and  a  re- 
adjustment of  the  means  of  attaining  them. 
From  the  first  the  outcast  felt  himself  superior 
to  the  well-to-do  people  who  looked  down  upon 
him;  and  with  all  his  power  he  sought  for  a  posi- 
tion from  which  he  could  force  them  to  acknowl- 
edge his  superiority.  This  he  found  in  the  next 
and  better  world,  of  which  the  Jews  and  Chris- 
tians knew.  After  a  crisis,  which  some  consider 
as  psychopathologic,  he  knew  himself  to  be  sent 
by  Allah  to  call  the  materialistic  community, 
which  he  hated  and  despised,  to  the  alternative, 
either  in  following  him  to  find  eternal  blessed- 
ness, or  in  denying  him  to  be  doomed  to  eternal 
fire. 

Powerless  against  the  scepticism  of  his  hearers, 
after  twelve  years  of  preaching  followed  only  by 
a  few  dozen,  most  of  them  outcasts  like  himself, 
he  hoped  now  and  then  that  Allah  would  strike 
the  recalcitrant  multitude  with  an  earthly  doom, 
as  he  knew  from  revelations  had  happened  before. 
This  hope  was  also  unfulfilled.  As  other  mes- 
sengers of  God  had  done  in  similar  circumstances. 


44  MOHAMMEDANISM 

he  sought  for  a  more  fruitful  field  than  that  of  his 
birthplace;  he  set  out  on  the  Hijrah,  i.  e.,  emigra- 
tion to  Medina.  Here  circumstances  were  more 
favourable  to  him:  in  a  short  time  he  became  the 
head  of  a  considerable  community. 

Allah,  who  had  given  him  power,  soon  allowed 
him  to  use  it  for  the  protection  of  the  interests  of 
the  Faithful  against  the  unbelievers.  Once  be- 
come militant,  Mohammed  turned  from  the 
purely  defensive  to  the  aggressive  attitude,  with 
such  success  that  a  great  part  of  the  Arab  tribes 
were  compelled  to  accept  Islam,  ''obedience  to 
Allah  and  His  Messenger."  The  rule  formerly 
insisted  upon:  "No  compulsion  in  religion,"  was 
sacrificed,  since  experience  taught  him,  that  the 
truth  was  more  easily  forced  upon  men  by  vio- 
lence than  by  threats  which  would  be  fulfilled 
only  after  the  resurrection.  Naturally,  the  re- 
ligious value  of  the  conversions  sank  in  propor- 
tion as  their  number  increased.  The  Prophet  of 
world  renouncement  in  Mecca  wished  to  win 
souls  for  his  faith;  the  Prophet-Prince  in  Me- 
dina needed  subjects  and  fighters  for  his  army. 
Yet  he  was  still  the  same  Mohammed. 

Parallel  with  his  altered  position  towards  the 
heathen  Arabs  went  a  readjustment  of  his  point 
of  view  towards  the  followers  of  Scripture.  Mo- 
hammed never  pretended  to  preach  a  new  re- 
ligion; he  demanded  in  the  name  of  Allah  the 
same  Islam  (submission)  that  Moses,  Jesus,  and 
former  prophets  had  demanded  of  their  nations. 


CONCERNING  THE  ORIGIN  OF  ISLAM     45 

In  his  earlier  revelations  he  always  points  out 
the  identity  of  his  ''Qorans"  with  the  contents  of 
the  sacred  books  of  Jews  and  Christians,  in  the 
sure  conviction  that  these  will  confirm  his  asser- 
tion if  asked.  In  Medina  he  was  disillusioned  by 
finding*  neither  Jews  nor  Christians  prepared  to 
acknowledge  an  Arabian  prophet,  not  even  for 
the  Arabs  only;  so  he  was  led  to  distinguish  be- 
tween the  true  contents  of  the  Bible  and  that 
which  had  been  made  of  it  by  the  falsification  of 
later  Jews  and  Christians.  He  preferred  now  to 
connect  his  own  revelations  more  immediately 
with  those  of  Abraham,  no  books  of  whom  could 
be  cited  against  him,  and  who  was  acknowledged 
by  Jews  and  Christians  without  being  himself 
either  a  Jew  or  a  Christian. 

This  turn,  this  particular  connection  of  Islam 
with  Abraham,  made  it  possible  for  him,  by 
means  of  an  adaptation  of  the  biblical  legends 
concerning  Abraham,  Hagar,  and  Ishmael,  to  in- 
clude in  his  religion  a  set  of  religious  customs  of 
the  Meccans,  especially  the  hajj."^  Thus  Islam  be- 
came more  Arabian,  and  at  the  same  time  more 
independent  of  the  other  revealed  religions, 
whose  degeneracy  was  demonstrated  by  their  re- 
fusal to  acknowledge  Mohammed. 

All  this  is  to  be  explained  without  the  suppo- 
sition of  conscious  trickery  or  dishonesty  on  the 


1  A  complete  explanation  of  the  gradual  development  of  the  Abraham 
legend  in  the  Qoran  can  be  found  in  my  book  Het  Mekaansche  Feest 
{The  Feast  of  Mecca),  Leiden,  1880. 


46  MOHAMMEDANISM 

part  of  Mohammed.  There  was  no  other  way  for 
the  unlettered  Prophet,  whose  belief  in  his  mis- 
sion was  unshaken,  to  overcome  the  difBculties 
entailed  by  his  closer  acquaintance  with  the 
tenets  of  other  religions. 

How,  then,  are  we  to  explain  the  starting-point 
of  it  all — Mohammed's  sense  of  vocation?  Was 
it  a  disease  of  the  spirit,  a  kind  of  madness?  At 
all  events,  the  data  are  insufficient  upon  which  to 
form  a  serious  diagnosis.  Some  have  called  it 
epilepsy.  Sprenger,  with  an  exaggerated  display 
of  certainty  based  upon  his  former  medical 
studies,  gave  Mohammed's  disorder  the  name  of 
hysteria.  Others  try  to  find  a  connection  between 
Mohammed's  extraordinary  interest  in  the  fair 
sex  and  his  prophetic  consciousness.  But,  after 
all,  is  it  explaining  the  spiritual  life  of  a  man,  who 
was  certainly  unique,  if  we  put  a  label  upon  him, 
and  thus  class  him  with  others,  who  at  the  most 
shared  with  him  certain  abnormalities?  A  nor- 
mal man  Mohammed  certainly  was  not.  But  as 
soon  as  we  try  to  give  a  positive  name  to  this 
negative  quality,  then  we  do  the  same  as  the 
heathens  of  Mecca,  who  were  violently  awakened 
by  his  thundering  prophecies:  ''He  is  nothing  but 
one  possessed,  a  poet,  a  soothsayer,  a  sorcerer," 
they  said.  Whether  we  say  with  the  old  Euro- 
pean biographers  "impostor,"  or  with  the  modern 
ones  put  "epileptic,"  or  "hysteric"  in  its  place, 
makes  little  difference.  The  Meccans  ended  by 
submitting  to  him,  and  conquering  a  world  under 


CONCERNING  THE  ORIGIN  OF  ISLAM     47 

the  banner  of  his  faith.  We,  with  the  diffidence 
which  true  science  implies,  feel  obliged  merely  to 
call  him  Mohammed,  and  to  seek  in  the  Qoran, 
and  with  great  cautiousness  in  the  Tradition,  a  few 
principal  points  of  his  life  and  work,  in  order  to 
see  how  in  his  mind  the  intense  feeling  of  dis- 
content during  the  misery  of  his  youth,  together 
with  a  great  self-reliance,  a  feeling  of  spiritual 
superiority  to  his  surroundings,  developed  into  a 
call,  the  form  of  which  was  largely  decided  by 
Jewish  and  Christian  influence. 

While  being  struck  by  various  weaknesses 
which  disfigured  this  great  personality  and  which 
he  himself  freely  confessed,  we  must  admire  the 
perseverance  with  which  he  retained  his  faith  in 
his  divine  mission,  not  discouraged  by  twelve 
years  of  humiliation,  nor  by  the  repudiation  of  the 
"People  of  Scripture,"  upon  whom  he  had  relied 
as  his  principal  witnesses,  nor  yet  by  numbers  of 
temporary  rebuffs  during  his  struggle  for  the 
dominion  of  Allah  and  His  Messenger,  which  he 
carried  on  through  the  whole  of  Arabia. 

Was  Mohammed  conscious  of  the  universality 
of  his  mission?  In  the  beginning  he  certainly 
conceived  his  work  as  merely  the  Arabian  part  of 
a  universal  task,  which,  for  other  parts  of  the 
world,  was  laid  upon  other  messengers.  In  the 
Medina  period  he  ever  more  decidedly  chose  the 
direction  of  ''forcing  to  comply."  He  was  con- 
tent only  when  the  heathens  perceived  that 
further  resistance  to  Allah's  hosts  was  useless; 


48  MOHAMMEDANISM 

their  understanding  of  his  "clear  Arabic  Qoran" 
was  no  longer  the  principal  object  of  his  striving. 
Such  an  Islam  could  equally  well  be  forced  upon 
non-Arabian  heathens.  And,  as  regards  the 
"People  of  Scripture/'  since  Mohammed's  en- 
deavour to  be  recognized  by  them  had  failed,  he 
had  taken  up  his  position  opposed  to  them,  even 
above  them.  With  the  rise  of  his  power  he  be- 
came hard  and  cruel  to  the  Jews  in  North- Arabia, 
and  from  Jews  and  Christians  alike  in  Arabia  he 
demanded  submission  to  his  authority,  since  it 
had  proved  impossible  to  make  them  recognize 
his  divine  mission.  This  demand  could  quite 
logically  be  extended  to  all  Christians ;  in  the  first 
place  to  those  of  the  Byzantine  Empire.  But  did 
Mohammed  himself  come  to  these  conclusions 
in  the  last  part  of  his  life?  Are  the  words  in 
which  Allah  spoke  to  him :  "We  have  sent  thee  to 
men  in  general,"  ^  and  a  few  expressions  of  the 
same  sort,  to  be  taken  in  that  sense,  or  does  "hu- 
manity" here,  as  in  many  other  places  in  the 
Qoran,  mean  those  with  whom  Mohammed  had 
especially  to  do?  Noldeke  is  strongly  of  opinion 
that  the  principal  lines  of  the  program  of  con- 
quest carried  out  after  Mohammed's  death,  had 
been  drawn  by  the  Prophet  himself.  Lammens 
and  others  deny  with  equal  vigour,  that  Moham- 
med ever  looked  upon  the  whole  world  as  the  field 

1  Qordn,  xxxiv.,  27.  The  translation  of  this  verse  has  always  been 
a  subject  of  great  difference  of  opinion.  At  the  time  of  its  revelation — 
as  fixed  by  Mohammedan  as  well  as  by  Western  authorities— the  uni- 
versal conception  of  Mohammed's  mission  was  quite  out  of  question. 


CONCERNING  THE  ORIGIN  OF  ISLAM     49 

of  his  mission.    This  shows  that  the  solution  is 
not  evident.^ 

In  our  valuation  of  Mohammed's  sayings  we 
cannot  lay  too  much  stress  upon  his  incapability 
of  looking  far  ahead.  The  final  aims  which 
Mohammed  set  himself  were  considered  by  sane 
persons  as  unattainable.  His  firm  belief  in  the 
realization  of  the  vague  picture  of  the  future 
which  he  had  conceived,  nay,  which  Allah  held 
before  him,  drove  him  to  the  uttermost  exertion 
of  his  mental  power  in  order  to  surmount  the 
innumerable  unexpected  obstacles  which  he  en- 
countered. Hence  the  variability  of  the  practical 
directions  contained  in  the  Qoran;  they  are  con- 
stantly altered  according  to  circumstances.  Al- 
lah's words  during  the  last  part  of  Mohammed's 

1  Professor  T.  W.  Arnold  in  the  2d  edition  (London,  1913)  of  his 
valuable  work  The  Preaching  of  Islam  (especially  pp.  28-31),  warmly 
endeavours  to  prove  that  Mohammed  from  the  beginning  considered 
his  mission  as  universal.  He  weakens  his  argument  more  than  is 
necessary  by  placing  the  Tradition  upon  an  almost  equal  footing  with 
the  Qoran  as  a  source,  and  by  ignoring  the  historical  development 
which  is  obvious  in  the  Qoran  itself.  In  this  way  he  does  not  perceive 
the  great  importance  of  the  history  of  the  Abraham  legend  in  Moham- 
med's conception.  Moreover,  the  translation  of  the  verses  of  the 
Qoran  on  p.  29  sometimes  says  more  than  the  original.  Lil-nds  is  not 
"to  mankind"  but  "to  men,"  in  the  sense  of  "to  everybody."  Qoran, 
xvi.,  86,  does  not  say:  "One  day  we  will  raise  up  a  witness  out  of 
every  nation,"  but :  "On  the  day  (t.  e.,  the  day  of  resurrection)  when 
we  will  raise  up,  etc.,"  which  would  seem  to  refer  to  the  theme  so 
constantly  repeated  in  the  Qoran,  that  each  nation  will  be  confronted 
on  the  Day  of  Judgment  with  the  prophet  sent  to  it.  When  the  Qoran 
is  called  an  "admonition  to  the  world  ('dlamm)"  and  Mohammed's 
mission  a  "mercy  to  the  world  ('dlamin),"  then  we  must  remember 
that  'dlamin  is  one  of  the  most  misused  rhymewords  in  the  Qoran 
(e.  g.,  Qoran,  xv.,  70)  ;  and  we  should  not  therefore  translate  it  em- 
phatically as  "all  created  beings,"  unless  the  universality  of  Moham- 
med's mission  is  firmly  established  by  other  proofs.  And  this  is  far 
from  being  the  case. 


50  MOHAMMEDANISM 

life:  "This  day  have  I  perfected  your  religion  for 
you,  and  have  I  filled  up  the  measure  of  my  fa- 
vours tov^ards  you,  and  chosen  Islam  for  you  as 
your  religion,"  have  in  no  way  the  meaning  of 
the  exclamation:  "It  is  finished,"  of  the  dying 
Christ.  They  are  only  a  cry  of  jubilation  over  the 
degradation  of  the  heathen  Arabs  by  the  triumph 
of  Allah's  weapons.  At  Mohammed's  death 
everything  was  still  unstable;  and  the  vital  ques- 
tions for  Islam  were  subjects  of  contention  be- 
tween the  leaders  even  before  the  Prophet  had 
been  buried. 

The  expedient  of  new  revelations  completing, 
altering,  or  abrogating  former  ones  had  played 
an  important  part  in  the  legislative  work  of  Mo- 
hammed. Now,  he  had  never  considered  that  by 
his  death  the  spring  would  be  stopped,  although 
completion  was  wanted  in  every  respect.  For, 
without  doubt,  Mohammed  felt  his  weakness  in 
systematizing  and  his  absence  of  clearness  of 
vision  into  the  future,  and  therefore  he  postponed 
the  promulgation  of  divine  decrees  as  long  as  pos- 
sible, and  he  solved  only  such  questions  of  law 
as  frequently  recurred,  when  further  hesitation 
would  have  been  dangerous  to  his  authority  and 
to  the  peace  of  the  community. 

At  Mohammed's  death,  all  Arabs  were  not  yet 
subdued  to  his  authority.  The  expeditions  which 
he  had  undertaken  or  arranged  beyond  the  north- 
ern boundaries  of  Arabia,  were  directed  against 
Arabs,  although  they  were  likely  to  rouse  conflict 


CONCERNING  THE  ORIGIN  OF  ISLAM     51 

with  the  Byzantine  and  Persian  empires.  It 
would  have  been  contrary  to  Mohammed's  usual 
methods  if  this  had  led  him  to  form  a  general 
definition  of  his  attitude  towards  the  world  out- 
side Arabia. 

As  little  as  Mohammed,  when  he  invoked  the 
Meccans  in  wild  poetic  inspirations  to  array 
themselves  behind  him  to  seek  the  blessedness  of 
future  life,  had  dreamt  of  the  possibility  that 
twenty  years  later  the  whole  of  Arabia  would  ac- 
knowledge his  authority  in  this  world,  as  little, 
nay,  much  less,  could  he  at  the  close  of  his  life 
have  had  the  faintest  premonition  of  the  fabulous 
development  which  his  state  would  reach  half  a 
century  later.  The  subjugation  of  the  mighty 
Persia  and  of  some  of  the  richest  provinces  of  the 
Byzantine  Empire,  only  to  mention  these,  was 
never  a  part  of  his  program,  although  legend  has 
it  that  he  sent  out  written  challenges  to  the  six 
princes  of  the  world  best  known  to  him.  Yet 
we  may  say  that  Mohammed's  successors  in  the 
guidance  of  his  community,  by  continuing  their 
expansion  towards  the  north,  after  the  suppres- 
sion of  the  apostasy  that  followed  his  death,  re- 
mained in  Mohammed's  line  of  action.  There  is 
even  more  evident  continuity  in  the  development 
of  the  empire  of  the  Omayyads  out  of  the  state 
of  Mohammed,  than  in  the  series  of  events  by 
which  we  see  the  dreaded  Prince-Prophet  of 
Medina    grow   out   of   the    "possessed    one"    of 


52  MOHAMMEDANISM 

Mecca.  But  if  Mohammed  had  been  able  to  fore- 
see how  the  unity  of  Arabia,  which  he  nearly  ac- 
complished, was  to  bring  into  being  a  formidable 
international  empire,  we  should  expect  some  in- 
dubitable traces  of  this  in  the  Qoran;  not  a  few 
verses  of  dubious  interpretation,  but  some  cer- 
tain sign  that  the  Revelation,  which  had  repeat- 
edly, and  with  the  greatest  emphasis,  called  itself 
a  "plain  Arabic  Qoran,"  intended  for  those  "to 
whom  no  warner  had  yet  been  sent,"  should  in 
future  be  valid  for  the  'Ajam,  the  Barbarians,  as 
well  as  for  the  Arabs. 

Even  if  we  ascribe  to  Mohammed  something 
of  the  universal  program,  which  the  later  tradi- 
tion makes  him  to  have  drawn  up,  he  certainly 
could  not  foresee  the  success  of  it.  For  this,  in 
the  first  place,  the  economic  and  political  factors 
to  which  some  scholars  of  our  day  would  at- 
tribute the  entire  explanation  of  the  Islam 
movement,  must  be  taken  into  consideration. 
Mohammed  did  to  some  extent  prepare  the  uni- 
versality of  his  religion  and  make  it  possible. 
But  that  Islam,  which  came  into  the  world  as  the 
Arabian  form  of  the  one,  true  religion,  has  ac- 
tually become  a  universal  religion,  is  due  to  cir- 
cumstances which  had  little  to  do  with  its 
origin."  ^     This  extension  of  the  domain  to  be 

1  Sir  William  Muir  was  not  wrong  when  he  said :  "From  first  to 
last  the  summons  was  to  Arabs  and  to  none  other.  .  .  .  The  seed  of 
a  universal  creed  had  indeed  been  sown;  but  that  it  ever  germinated 
was  due  to  circumstances  rather  than  design." 


CONCERNING  THE  ORIGIN  OF  ISLAM     53 

subdued  to  its  spiritual  rule  entailed  upon  Islam 
about  three  centuries  of  development  and  accom- 
modation, of  a  different  sort,  to  be  sure,  but  not 
less  drastic  in  character  than  that  of  the  Chris- 
tian Church. 


II 

THE  RELIGIOUS  DEVELOPMENT 
OF  ISLAM 

We  can  hardly  imagine  a  poorer,  more  miser- 
able population  than  that  of  the  South-Arabian 
country  Hadramaut.  All  moral  and  social  prog- 
ress is  there  impeded  by  the  continuance  of  the 
worst  elements  of  Jahiliyyah  (Arabian  pagan- 
ism), side  by  side  with  those  of  Islam.  A  secular 
nobility  is  formed  by  groups  of  people,  who 
grudge  each  other  their  very  lives  and  fight  each 
other  according  to  the  rules  of  retaliation  unmiti- 
gated by  any  more  humane  feelings.  The  re- 
ligious nobility  is  represented  by  descendants  of 
the  Prophet,  arduous  patrons  of  a  most  narrow- 
minded  orthodoxy  and  of  most  bigoted  fanati- 
cism. In  a  well-ordered  society,  making  the  most 
of  all  the  means  offered  by  modern  technical  sci- 
ence, the  dry  barren  soil  might  be  made  to  yield 
sufficient  harvests  to  satisfy  the  wants  of  its 
members ;  but  among  these  inhabitants,  paralysed 
by  anarchy,  chronic  famine  prevails.  Foreigners 
wisely  avoid  this  miserable  country,  and  if  they 
did  visit  it,  would  not  be  hospitably  received. 
Hunger  forces  many  Hadramites  to  emigrate; 
throughout  the  centuries  we  find  them  in  all  the 

54 


RELIGIOUS  DEVELOPMENT  OF  ISLAM      55 

countries  of  Islam,  in  the  sacred  cities  of  West- 
ern-Arabia, in  Syria,  Egypt,  India,  Indonesia, 
where  they  often  occupy  important  positions. 

In  the  Dutch  Indies,  for  instance,  they  live  in 
the  most  important  commercial  towns,  and 
though  the  Government  has  never  favoured  them, 
and  though  they  have  had  to  compete  with 
Chinese  and  with  Europeans,  they  have  succeeded 
in  making  their  position  sufficiently  strong.  Be- 
fore European  influence  prevailed,  they  even 
founded  states  in  some  of  the  larger  islands  or 
they  obtained  political  influence  in  existing 
native  states.  Under  a  strong  European  govern- 
ment they  are  among  the  quietest,  most  indus- 
trious subjects,  all  earning  their  own  living  and 
saving  something  for  their  poor  relations  at 
home.  They  come  penniless,  and  without  any 
of  that  theoretical  knowledge  or  practical  skill 
which  we  are  apt  to  consider  as  indispensable  for 
a  man  who  wishes  to  try  his  fortune  in  a  com- 
plicated modern  colonial  world.  Yet  I  have 
known  some  who  in  twenty  years'  time  have  be- 
come commercial  potentates,  and  even  mil- 
lionaires. 

The  strange  spectacle  of  these  latent  talents 
and  of  the  suppressed  energy  of  the  people  of 
Hadramaut  that  seem  to  be  waiting  only  for 
transplantation  into  a  more  favourable  soil  to  de- 
velop with  amazing  rapidity,  helps  us  to  under- 
stand the  enormous  consequences  of  the  Arabian 
migration  in  the  seventh  century. 


56  MOHAMMEDANISM 

The  spiritual  goods,  with  which  Islam  set  out 
into  the  world,  were  far  from  imposing.  It 
preached  a  most  simple  monotheism:  Allah,  the 
Almighty  Creator  and  Ruler  of  heaven  and  earth, 
entirely  self-sufficient,  so  that  it  were  ridiculous 
to  suppose  Him  to  have  partners  or  sons  and 
daughters  to  support  Him;  who  has  created  the 
angels  that  they  might  form  His  retinue,  and  men 
and  genii  (jinn)  that  they  might  obediently  serve 
Him;  who  decides  everything  according  to  His 
incalculable  will  and  is  responsible  to  nobody,  as 
the  Universe  is  His;  of  whom  His  creatures,  if 
their  minds  be  not  led  astray,  must  therefore 
stand  in  respectful  fear  and  awe.  He  has  made 
His  will  known  to  mankind,  beginning  at  Adam, 
but  the  spreading  of  mankind  over  the  surface  of 
the  earth,  its  seduction  by  Satan  and  his  emis- 
saries have  caused  most  nations  to  become  totally 
estranged  from  Him  and  His  service.  Now  and 
then,  when  He  considered  that  the  time  was 
come,  He  caused  a  prophet  to  arise  from  among  a 
nation  to  be  His  messenger  to  summon  people 
to  conversion,  and  to  tell  them  what  blessedness 
awaited  them  as  a  reward  of  obedience,  what 
punishments  would  be  inflicted  if  they  did  not 
believe  his  message. 

Sometimes  the  disobedient  had  been  struck  by 
earthly  judgment  (the  flood,  the  drowning  of  the 
Egyptians,  etc.),  and  the  faithful  had  been  res- 
cued in  a  miraculous  way  and  led  to  victory;  but 
such    things    merely    served   as    indications    of 


RELIGIOUS  DEVELOPMENT  OF  ISLAM      57 

Allah's  greatness.  One  day  the  whole  world  will 
be  overthrown  and  destroyed.  Then  the  dead 
will  be  awakened  and  led  before  Allah's  tribunal. 
The  faithful  will  have  abodes  appointed  them  in 
well-watered,  shady  gardens,  with  fruit-trees 
richly  laden,  with  luxurious  couches  upon  which 
they  may  lie  and  enjoy  the  delicious  food,  served 
by  the  ministrants  of  Paradise.  They  may  also 
freely  indulge  in  sparkling  wine  that  does  not 
intoxicate,  and  in  intercourse  with  women,  whose 
youth  and  virginity  do  not  fade.  The  unbelievers 
end  their  lives  in  Hell-fire;  or,  rather,  there  is  no 
end,  for  the  punishment  as  well  as  the  reward  are 
everlasting. 

Allah  gives  to  each  one  his  due.  The  actions 
of  His  creatures  are  all  accurately  written  down, 
and  when  Judgment  comes,  the  book  is  opened; 
moreover,  every  creature  carries  the  list  of  his 
own  deeds  and  misdeeds;  the  debit  and  credit 
sides  are  carefully  weighed  against  each  other  in 
the  divine  scales,  and  many  witnesses  are  heard 
before  judgment  is  pronounced.  Allah,  however, 
is  clement  and  merciful;  He  gladly  forgives  those 
sinners  who  have  believed  in  Him,  who  have  sin- 
cerely accepted  Islam,  that  is  to  say:  who  have 
acknowledged  His  absolute  authority  and  have 
believed  the  message  of  the  prophet  sent  to  them. 
These  prophets  have  the  privilege  of  acting  as 
mediators  on  behalf  of  their  followers,  not  in  the 
sense  of  redeemers,  but  as  advocates  who  receive 
gracious  hearing. 


58  MOHAMMEDANISM 

Naturally,  Islam,  submission  to  the  Lord  of 
the  Universe,  ought  to  express  itself  in  deeds. 
Allah  desires  the  homage  of  formal  worship, 
which  must  be  performed  several  times  a  day  by 
every  individual,  and  on  special  occasions  by  the 
assembled  faithful,  led  by  one  of  them.  This 
service,  saldt,  acquired  its  strictly  binding  rules 
only  after  Mohammed's  time,  but  already  in  his 
lifetime  it  consisted  chiefly  of  the  same  elements 
as  now:  the  recital  of  sacred  texts,  especially 
taken  from  the  Revelation,  certain  postures  of 
the  body  (standing,  inclination,  kneeling,  pros- 
tration) with  the  face  towards  Mecca.  This  last 
particular  and  the  language  of  the  Revelation  are 
the  Arabian  elements  of  the  service,  which  is  for 
the  rest  an  imitation  of  Jewish  and  Christian  ritu- 
als, so  far  as  Mohammed  knew  them.  There  was 
no  sacrament,  consequently  no  priest  to  adminis- 
ter it ;  Islam  has  always  been  the  lay  religion  par 
excellence.  Teaching  and  exhortation  are  the 
only  spiritual  help  that  the  pious  Mohammedan 
wants,  and  this  simple  care  of  souls  is  exercised 
without  any  ordination  or  consecration. 

Fasting,  for  a  month  if  possible,  and  longer  if 
desired,  was  also  an  integral  part  of  religious  life 
and,  by  showing  disregard  of  earthly  joys,  a  proof 
of  faith  in  Allah's  promises  for  the  world  to  come. 
Almsgiving,  recommended  above  all  other  vir- 
tues, was  not  only  to  be  practised  in  obedience  to 
Allah's  law  and  in  faith  in  retribution,  but  it  was 
to   testify  contempt   of   all   earthly   possessions 


RELIGIOUS  DEVELOPMENT  OF  ISLAM       59 

which  might  impede  the  striving  after  eternal 
happiness.  Later,  Mohammed  was  compelled,  by 
the  need  of  a  public  fund  and  the  waning  zeal  of 
the  faithful  as  their  numbers  increased,  to  regu- 
late the  practice  of  this  virtue  and  to  exact  cer- 
tain minima  as  taxes  (zakdt). 

When  Mohammed,  taking  his  stand  as  opposed 
to  Judaism  and  Christianity,  had  accentuated  the 
Arabian  character  of  his  religion,  the  Meccan 
rites  of  pagan  origin  were  incorporated  into 
Islam;  but  only  after  the  purification  required  by 
monotheism.  From  that  time  forward  the  yearly 
celebration  of  the  Hajj  was  among  the  ritual 
duties  of  the  Moslim  community. 

In  the  first  years  of  the  strife  yet  another  duty 
was  most  emphatically  impressed  on  the  Faith- 
ful; jihad,  i.  e.,  readiness  to  sacrifice  life  and  pos- 
sessions for  the  defence  of  Islam,  understood, 
since  the  conquest  of  Mecca  in  630,  as  the  exten- 
sion by  force  of  arms  of  the  authority  of  the  Mos- 
lim state,  first  over  the  whole  of  Arabia,  and  soon 
after  Mohammed's  death  over  the  whole  world, 
so  far  as  Allah  granted  His  hosts  for  the  victory. 

For  the  rest,  the  legislative  revelations  regu- 
lated only  such  points  as  had  become  subjects  of 
argument  or  contest  in  Mohammed's  lifetime,  or 
such  as  were  particularly  suggested  by  that  an- 
tithesis of  paganism  and  revelation,  which  had 
determined  Mohammed's  prophetical  career. 
Gambling  and  wine  were  forbidden,  the  latter 
after  some  hesitation  between  the  inculcation  of 


6o  MOHAMMEDANISM 

temperance  and  that  of  abstinence.  Usury,  taken 
in  the  sense  of  requiring  any  interest  at  all  upon 
loans,  was  also  forbidden.  All  tribal  feuds  with 
their  consequences  had  henceforward  to  be  con- 
sidered as  non-existent,  and  retaliation,  provided 
that  the  offended  party  would  not  agree  to  accept 
compensation,  was  put  under  the  control  of  the 
head  of  the  community.  Polygamy  and  inter- 
course of  master  and  female  slave  were  restricted ; 
the  obligations  arising  from  blood-relationship  or 
ownership  were  regulated.  These  points  suffice 
to  remind  us  of  the  nature  of  the  Qoranic  regu- 
lations. Reference  to  certain  subjects  in  this  re- 
vealed law  while  others  were  ignored,  did  not 
depend  on  their  respective  importance  to  the  life 
of  the  community,  but  rather  on  what  happened 
to  have  been  suggested  by  the  events  in  Moham- 
med's lifetime.  For  Mohammed  knew  too  well 
how  little  qualified  he  was  for  legislative  work 
to  undertake  it  unless  absolutely  necessary. 

This  rough  sketch  of  what  Islam  meant  when 
it  set  out  to  conquer  the  world,  is  not  very  likely 
to  create  the  impression  that  its  incredibly  rapid 
extension  was  due  to  its  superiority  over  the 
forms  of  civilization  which  it  supplanted.  Lam- 
mens's  assertion,  that  Islam  was  the  Jewish  re- 
ligion simplified  according  to  Arabic  wants  and 
amplified  by  some  Christian  and  Arabic  tradi- 
tions, contains  a  great  deal  of  truth,  if  only  we 
recognize  the  central  importance  for  Moham- 
med's vocation  and  preaching  of  the  Christian 


RELIGIOUS  DEVELOPMENT  OF  ISLAM  6i 
doctrine  of  Resurrection  and  judgment.  This  ex- 
plains the  large  number  of  weak  points  that  the 
book  of  Mohammed's  revelations,  written  down 
by  his  first  followers,  offered  to  Jewish  and 
Christian  polemics.  It  was  easy  for  the  theo- 
logians of  those  religions  to  point  out  numberless 
mistakes  in  the  work  of  the  illiterate  Arabian 
prophet,  especially  where  he  maintained  that  he 
was  repeating  and  confirming  the  contents  of 
their  Bible.  The  Qoranic  revelations  about 
Allah's  intercourse  with  men,  taken  from  apocry- 
phal sources,  from  profane  legends  like  that  of 
Alexander  the  Great,  sometimes  even  created  by 
Mohammed's  own  fancy — such  as  the  story  of 
the  prophet  Salih,  said  to  have  lived  in  the  north 
of  Arabia,  and  that  of  the  prophet  Hud,  supposed 
to  have  lived  in  the  south;  all  this  could  not  but 
give  them  the  impression  of  a  clumsy  caricature 
of  true  tradition.  The  principal  doctrines  of 
Synagogue  and  Church  had  apparently  been  mis- 
understood, or  they  were  simply  denied  as  cor- 
ruptions. 

The  conversion  to  Islam,  within  a  hundred 
years,  of  such  nations  as  the  Egyptian,  the  Syr- 
ian, and  the  Persian,  can  hardly  be  attributed  to 
anything  but  the  latent  talents,  the  formerly  sup- 
pressed energy  of  the  Arabian  race  having  found 
a  favourable  soil  for  its  development;  talents  and 
energy,  however,  not  of  a  missionary  kind.  If 
Islam  is  said  to  have  been  from  its  beginning 


62  MOHAMMEDANISM 

down  to  the  present  day,  a  missionary  religion/ 
then  "mission"  is  to  be  taken  here  in  a  quite  pe- 
culiar sense,  and  special  attention  must  be  given 
to  the  preparation  of  the  missionary  field  by  the 
Moslim  armies,  related  by  history  and  considered 
as  most  important  by  the  Mohammedans  them- 
selves. 

Certainly,  the  nations  conquered  by  the  Arabs 
under  the  first  khalifs  were  not  obliged  to  choose 
between  living  as  Moslims  or  dying  as  unbeliev- 
ers. The  conquerors  treated  them  as  Mohammed 
had  treated  Jews  and  Christians  in  Arabia 
towards  the  end  of  his  life,  and  only  exacted  from 
them  submission  to  Moslim  authority.  They 
were  allowed  to  adhere  to  their  religion,  provided 
they  helped  with  their  taxes  to  fill  the  Moslim 
exchequer.  This  rule  was  even  extended  to  such 
religions  as  that  of  the  Parsis,  although  they  could 
not  be  considered  as  belonging  to  the  "People  of 
Scripture"  expressly  recognized  in  the  Qoran. 
But  the  social  condition  of  these  subjects  was 
gradually  made  so  oppressive  by  the  Moham- 
medan masters,  that  rapid  conversions  in  masses 
were  a  natural  consequence;  the  more  natural  be- 
cause among  the  conquered  nations  intellectual 

1  With  extraordinary  talent  this  thesis  has  been  defended  by  Pro- 
fessor T.  W.  Arnold  in  the  above  quoted  work,  The  Preaching  of 
Islam,  which  fully  deserves  the  attention  also  of  those  who  do  not 
agree  with  the  writer's  argument.  Among  the  many  objections  that 
may  be  raised  against  Prof.  Arnold's  conclusion,  we  point  to  the 
undeniable  fact,  that  the  Moslim  scholars  of  all  ages  hardly  speak 
of  "mission"  at  all,  and  always  treat  the  extension  of  the  true  faith  by 
holy  war  as  one  of  the  principal  duties  of  the  Moslim  community. 


RELIGIOUS  DEVELOPMENT  OF  ISLAM      63 

culture  was  restricted  to  a  small  circle,  so  that 
after  the  conquest  their  spiritual  leaders  lacked 
freedom  of  movement.  Besides,  practically  very- 
little  v^as  required  from  the  new  converts,  so  that 
it  was  very  tempting  to  take  the  step  that  led  to 
full  citizenship. 

No,  those  who  in  a  short  time  subjected  mil- 
lions of  non-Arabs  to  the  state  founded  by  Mo- 
hammed, and  thus  prepared  their  conversion, 
were  no  apostles.  They  were  generals  whose 
strategic  talents  would  have  remained  hidden  but 
for  Mohammed,  political  geniuses,  especially 
from  Mecca  and  Taif,  who,  before  Islam,  would 
have  excelled  only  in  the  organization  of  com- 
mercial operations  or  in  establishing  harmony 
between  hostile  families.  Now  they  proved  ca- 
pable of  uniting  the  Arabs  commanded  by  Allah, 
a  unity  still  many  a  time  endangered  during  the 
first  century  by  the  old  party  spirit;  and  of  de- 
vising a  division  of  labour  between  the  rulers  and 
the  conquered  which  made  it  possible  for  them  to 
control  the  function  of  complicated  machines  of 
state  without  any  technical  knowledge. 

Moreover,  several  circumstances  favoured  their 
work;  both  the  large  realms  which  extended 
north  of  Arabia,  were  in  a  state  of  political  de- 
cline; the  Christians  inhabiting  the  provinces  that 
were  to  be  conquered  first,  belonged,  for  the 
larger  part,  to  heretical  sects  and  were  treated  by 
the  orthodox  Byzantines  in  such  a  way  that  other 
masters,   if   tolerant,   might   be   welcome.    The 


64  MOHAMMEDANISM 

Arabian  armies  consisted  of  hardened  Bedouins 
with  few  wants,  whose  longing  for  the  treasures 
of  the  civilized  world  made  them  more  ready  to 
endure  the  pressure  of  a  discipline  hitherto  un- 
known to  them. 

The  use  that  the  leaders  made  of  the  occasion 
commands  our  admiration;  although  their  plan 
was  formed  in  the  course  and  under  the  influence 
of  generally  unforeseen  events.  Circumstances 
had  changed  Mohammed  the  Prophet  into  Mo- 
hammed the  Conqueror;  and  the  leaders,  who 
continued  the  conqueror's  work,  though  not 
driven  by  fanaticism  or  religious  zeal,  still  pre- 
pared the  conversion  of  millions  of  men  to  Islam. 

It  was  only  natural  that  the  new  masters 
adopted,  with  certain  modifications,  the  adminis- 
trative and  fiscal  systems  of  the  conquered  coun- 
tries. For  similar  reasons  Islam  had  to  complete 
its  spiritual  store  from  the  well-ordered  wealth 
of  that  of  its  new  adherents.  Recent  research 
shows  most  clearly,  that  Islam,  in  after  times  so 
sharply  opposed  to  other  religions  and  so 
strongly  armed  against  foreign  influence,  in  the 
first  century  borrowed  freely  and  simply  from 
the  'Teople  of  Scripture"  whatever  was  not  evi- 
dently in  contradiction  to  the  Qoran.  This  was 
to  be  expected;  had  not  Mohammed  from  the 
very  beginning  referred  to  the  "people  of  the 
Book''  as  "those  who  know"?  When  painful  ex- 
perience induced  him  afterwards  to  accuse  them 
of  corruption  of  their  Scriptures,  this  attitude 


RELIGIOUS  DEVELOPMENT  OF  ISLAM      65 

necessitated  a  certain  criticism  but  not  rejection 
of  their  tradition.  The  ritual,  only  provisionally 
regulated  and  continually  liable  to  change  ac- 
cording to  prophetic  inspiration  in  Mohammed^s 
lifetime,  required  unalterable  rules  after  his 
death.  Recent  studies  ^  have  shown  in  an 
astounding  way,  that  the  Jewish  ritual,  together 
with  the  religious  rites  of  the  Christians,  strongly 
influenced  the  definite  shape  given  to  that  of 
Islam,  while  indirect  influence  of  the  Parsi  re- 
ligion is  at  least  probable. 

So  much  for  the  rites  of  public  worship  and  the 
ritual  purity  they  require.  The  method  of  fast- 
ing seems  to  follow  the  Jewish  model,  whereas 
the  period  of  obligatory  fasting  depends  on  the 
Christian  usage. 

Mohammed's  fragmentary  and  unsystematic 
accounts  of  sacred  history  were  freely  drawn 
from  Jewish  and  Christian  sources  and  covered 
the  whole  period  from  the  creation  of  the  world 
until  the  first  centuries  of  the  Christian  era.  Of 
course,  features  shocking  to  the  Moslim  mind 
were  dropped  and  the  whole  adapted  to  the  mo- 
notonous conception  of  the  Qoran.  With  ever 
greater  boldness  the  story  of  Mohammed's  own 
life  was  exalted  to  the  sphere  of  the  supernatural; 
here  the  Gospel  served  as  example.  Though 
Mohammed  had  repeatedly  declared  himself  to 
be  an  ordinary  man  chosen  by  Allah  as  the  organ 

iThe  studies  of  Professors  C.  H.  Becker,  E.  Mittwoch,  and  A.  J. 
Wensinck,  especially  taken  in  connection  with  older  ones  of  Ignaz 
Goldziher,  have  thrown  much  light  upon  this  subject. 


66  MOHAMMEDANISM 

of  His  revelation,  and  whose  only  miracle  was 
the  Qoran,  posterity  ascribed  to  him  a  whole 
series  of  wonders,  evidently  invented  in  emula- 
tion of  the  wonders  of  Christ.  The  reason  for 
this  seems  to  have  been  the  idea  that  none  of 
the  older  prophets,  not  even  Jesus,  of  whom  the 
Qoran  tells  the  greatest  wonders,  could  have 
worked  a  miracle  without  Mohammed,  the  Seal 
of  the  prophets,  having  rivalled  or  surpassed  him 
in  this  respect.  Only  Jesus  was  the  Messiah; 
but  this  title  did  not  exceed  in  value  different 
titles  of  other  prophets,  and  Mohammed's  spe- 
cial epithets  were  of  a  higher  order.  A  relative 
sinlessness  Mohammed  shared  with  Jesus;  the 
acceptance  of  this  doctrine,  contradictory  to  the 
original  spirit  of  the  Qoran,  had  moreover  a  dog- 
matic motive:  it  was  considered  indispensable 
to  raise  the  text  of  the  Qoran  above  all  sus- 
picion of  corruption,  which  suspicion  would  not 
be  excluded  if  the  organ  of  the  Revelation  were 
fallible. 

This  period  of  naively  adopting  institutions, 
doctrines,  and  traditions  was  soon  followed  by  an 
awakening  to  the  consciousness  that  Islam  could 
not  well  absorb  any  more  of  such  foreign  ele- 
ments without  endangering  its  independent 
character.  Then  a  sorting  began ;  and  the  assimi- 
lation of  the  vast  amount  of  borrowed  matter, 
that  had  already  become  an  integral  part  of 
Islam,  was  completed  by  submitting  the  whole 
to  a  peculiar  treatment.    It  was  carefully  divested 


RELIGIOUS  DEVELOPMENT  OF  ISLAM  6y 
of  all  marks  of  origin  and  labelled  hadith^  so 
that  henceforth  it  was  regarded  as  emanations 
from  the  wisdom  of  the  Arabian  Prophet,  for 
which  his  followers  owed  no  thanks  to  foreigners. 

At  first,  it  was  only  at  Medina  that  some  pious 
people    occupied    themselves    with    registering, 
putting  in  order,  and  systematizing  the  spiritual 
property    of    Islam;    afterwards    similar    circles 
were  formed  in  other  centres,  such  as  Mecca, 
Kufa,  Basra,  Misr  (Cairo),  and  elsewhere.     At 
the  outset  the  collection  of  divine  sayings,  the 
Qoran,  was  the  only  guide,  the  only  source  of 
decisive  decrees,  the  only  touchstone  of  what  was 
true  or  false,  allowed  or  forbidden.    Reluctantly, 
but  decidedly  at  last,  it  was  conceded  that  the 
foundations  laid  by  Mohammed  for  the  life  of 
his  community  were  by  no  means  all  to  be  found 
in   the   Holy   Book;   rather,   that   Mohammed's 
revelations  without  his  explanation  and  practice 
would  have  remained  an  enigma.    It  was  under- 
stood now  that  the  rules  and  laws  of  Islam  were 
founded  on  God's  word  and  on  the  Sunnah,  i.  e., 
the  ''way"  pointed  out  by  the  Prophet's  word  and 
example.     Thus  it  had  been  from  the  moment 
that  Allah  had  caused  His  light  to  shine  over 
Arabia,  and  thus  it  must  remain,  if  human  error 
was  not  to  corrupt  Islam. 

At  the  moment  when  this  conservative  instinct 

1  Hadtth,  the  Arabic  word  for  record,  story,  has  assumed  the  tech- 
nical meaning  of  "tradition"  concerning  the  words  and  deeds  of 
Mohammed.  It  is  used  as  well  in  the  sense  of  a  single  record  of  this 
sort  as  in  that  of  the  whole  body  of  sacred  traditions. 


68  MOHAMMEDANISM 

began  to  assert  itself  among  the  spiritual  leaders, 
so  much  foreign  matter  had  already  been  incor- 
porated into  Islam,  that  the  theory  of  the  suffi- 
ciency of  Qoran  and  Sunnah  could  not  have  been 
maintained  without  the  labelling  operation  which 
we  have  alluded  to.  So  it  was  assumed  that  as 
surely  as  Mohammed  must  have  surpassed  his 
predecessors  in  perfection  and  in  wonders,  so 
surely  must  all  the  principles  and  precepts  neces- 
sary for  his  community  have  been  formulated  by 
him.  Thus,  by  a  gigantic  web  of  fiction,  he  be- 
came after  his  death  the  organ  of  opinions,  ideas, 
and  interests,  whose  lawfulness  was  recognized 
by  every  influential  section  of  the  Faithful.  All 
that  could  not  be  identified  as  part  of  the 
Prophet's  Sunnah,  received  no  recognition;  on  the 
other  hand,  all  that  was  accepted  had,  somehow, 
to  be  incorporated  into  the  Sunnah. 

It  became  a  fundamental  dogma  of  Islam,  that 
the  Sunnah  was  the  indispensable  completion  of 
the  Qoran,  and  that  both  together  formed  the 
source  of  Mohammedan  law  and  doctrine;  so 
much  so  that  every  party  assumed  the  name  of 
"People  of  the  Sunnah"  to  express  its  pretension 
to  orthodoxy.  The  contents  of  the  Sunnah,  how- 
ever, was  the  subject  of  a  great  deal  of 
controversy;  so  that  it  came  to  be  considered  nec- 
essary to  make  the  Prophet  pronounce  his 
authoritative  judgment  on  this  difference  of 
opinion.  He  was  said  to  have  called  it  a  proof 
of  God's  special  mercy,  that  within  reasonable 


RELIGIOUS  DEVELOPMENT  OF  ISLAM      69 

limits  difference  of  opinion  was  allowed  in  his 
community.  Of  that  privilege  Mohammedans 
have  always  amply  availed  themselves. 

When  the  difference  touched  on  political  ques- 
tions, especially  on  the  succession  of  the  Prophet 
in  the  government  of  the  community,  schism  was 
the  inevitable  consequence.  Thus  arose  the  party 
strifes  of  the  first  century,  which  led  to  the  estab- 
lishment of  the  sects  of  the  Shi'ites  and  the  Khari- 
jites,  separate  communities,  severed  from  the 
great  whole,  that  led  their  own  lives,  and  there- 
fore followed  paths  different  from  those  of  the 
majority  in  matters  of  doctrine  and  law  as  well 
as  in  politics.  The  sharpness  of  the  political 
antithesis  served  to  accentuate  the  importance 
of  the  other  differences  in  such  cases  and  to 
debar  their  acceptance  as  the  legal  consequence 
of  the  difference  of  opinion  that  God's  mercy 
allowed.  That  the  political  factor  was  indeed  the 
great  motive  of  separation,  is  clearly  shown  in 
our  own  day,  now  that  one  Mohammedan  state 
after  the  other  sees  its  political  independence  dis- 
appearing and  efforts  are  being  made  from  all 
sides  to  re-establish  the  unity  of  the  Moham- 
medan world  by  stimulating  the  feeling  of  re- 
ligious brotherhood.  Among  the  most  cultivated 
Moslims  of  different  countries  an  earnest  en- 
deavour is  gaining  ground  to  admit  Shi'ites, 
Kharijites,  and  others,  formerly  abused  as  here- 
tics, into  the  great  community,  now  threatened 
by   common   foes,   and   to   regard   their   special 


70  MOHAMMEDANISM 

tenets  in  the  same  way  as  the  differences  exist- 
ing between  the  four  law  schools:  Hanafites, 
Malikites,  Shafi'ites  and  Hanbalites,  which  for 
centuries  have  been  considered  equally  orthodox. 

Although  the  differences  that  divide  these 
schools  at  first  caused  great  excitement  and  gave 
rise  to  violent  discussions,  the  strong  catholic 
instinct  of  Islam  always  knew  how  to  prevent 
schism.  Each  new  generation  either  found  the 
golden  mean  between  the  extremes  which  had 
divided  the  preceding  one,  or  it  recognized  the 
right  of  both  opinions. 

Though  the  dogmatic  differences  were  not  nec- 
essarily so  dangerous  to  unity  as  were  political 
ones,  yet  they  were  more  apt  to  cause  schism 
than  discussions  about  the  law.  It  was  essential 
to  put  an  end  to  dissension  concerning  the  theo- 
logical roots  of  the  whole  system  of  Islam.  Mo- 
hammed had  never  expressed  any  truth  in 
dogmatic  form;  all  systematic  thinking  was  for- 
eign to  his  nature.  It  was  again  the  non-Arabic 
Moslims,  especially  those  of  Christian  origin,  who 
suggested  such  doctrinal  questions.  At  first  they 
met  with  a  vehement  opposition  that  condemned 
all  dogmatic  discussion  as  a  novelty  of  the  Devil. 
In  the  long  run,  however,  the  contest  of  the 
conservatives  against  specially  objectionable  fea- 
tures of  the  dogmatists'  discussions  forced  them 
to  borrow  arms  from  the  dogmatic  arsenal. 
Hence  a  method  with  a  peculiar  terminology  came 
in  vogue,  to  which  even  the  boldest  imagination 


RELIGIOUS  DEVELOPMENT  OF  ISLAM  71 
could  not  ascribe  any  connection  with  the  Sun- 
nah  of  Mohammed.  Yet  some  traditions  ven- 
tured to  put  prophetic  warnings  on  Mohammed's 
lips  against  dogmatic  innovations  that  were  sure 
to  arise,  and  to  make  him  pronounce  the  names  of 
a  couple  of  future  sects.  But  no  one  dared  to 
make  the  Prophet  preach  an  orthodox  system  of 
dogmatics  resulting  from  the  controversies  of 
several  centuries,  all  the  terms  of  which  were  for- 
eign to  the  Arabic  speech  of  Mohammed's  time. 

Indeed,  all  the  subjects  which  had  given  rise 
to  dogmatic  controversy  in  the  Christian  Church, 
except  some  too  specifically  Christian,  were  dis- 
cussed by  the  mutakalUms,  the  dogmatists  of  Islam. 
Free  will  or  predestination;  God  omnipotent,  or 
first  of  all  just  and  holy;  God's  word  created  by 
Him,  or  sharing  His  eternity;  God  one  in  this 
sense,  that  His  being  admitted  of  no  plurality  of 
qualities,  or  possessed  of  qualities,  which  in  all 
eternity  are  inherent  in  His  being;  in  the  world 
to  come  only  bliss  and  doom,  or  also  an  inter- 
mediate state  for  the  neutral.  We  might  con- 
tinue the  enumeration  and  always  show  to  the 
Christian  church-historian  or  theologian  old  ac- 
quaintances in  Moslim  garb.  That  is  why  Ma- 
racci  and  Reland  could  understand  Jews  and 
Christians  yielding  to  the  temptation  of  joining 
Islam,  and  that  also  explains  why  Catholic  and 
Protestant  dogmatists  could  accuse  each  other  of 
Crypto-mohammedanism. 

Not  until  the  beginning  of  the  tenth  century 


^2  MOHAMMEDANISM 

A.D.  did  the  orthodox  Mohammedan  dogma  be- 
gin to  emerge  from  the  clash  of  opinions  into  its 
definite  shape.     The  Mu'tazilites  had  advocated 
man's  free  will;  had  given  prominence  to  justice 
and   holiness   in   their   conception   of   God,   had 
denied  distinct  qualities  in  God  and  the  eternity 
of  God's  Word;  had  accepted  a  place  for  the 
neutral  between  Paradise  and  Hell;  and  for  some 
time  the  favour  of  the  powers  in  authority  seemed 
to  assure  the  victory  of  their  system.    Al-Ash'ari 
contradicted  all  these  points,  and  his  system  has 
in  the  end  been  adopted  by  the  great  majority. 
The  Mu'tazilite  doctrines  for  a  long  time  still  en- 
thralled many  minds,  but  they  ended  by  taking 
refuge  in  the  political  heresy  of  Shi'itism.     In 
the  most  conservative  circles,  opponents  to  all 
speculation  were  never  wanting;  but  they  were 
obliged  unconsciously  to  make  large  concessions 
to  systematic  thought;  for  in  the  Moslim  world 
as  elsewhere  religious  belief  without  dogma  had 
become  as  impossible  as  breathing  is  without  air. 
Thus,  in  Islam,  a  whole  system,  which  could 
not  even  pretend  to  draw  its  authority  from  the 
Sunnah,  had  come  to  be  accepted.     It  was  not 
difficult  to  justify  this  deviation  from  the  ortho- 
dox abhorrence  against  novelties.     Islam  has  al- 
ways looked  at  the  world  in  a  pessimistic  way, 
a  view  expressed  in  numberless  prophetic  say- 
ings.    The  world  is  bad  and  will  become  worse 
and  worse.     Religion  and  morality  will  have  to 
wage  an  ever  more  hopeless  war  against  unbelief. 


RELIGIOUS  DEVELOPMENT  OF  ISLAM      73 

against  heresy  and  ungodly  ways  of  living. 
While  this  is  surely  no  reason  for  entering  into 
any  compromise  with  doctrines  which  depart  but 
a  hair's  breadth  from  Qoran  and  Sunnah,  it  neces- 
sitates methods  of  defence  against  heresy  as  un- 
known in  Mohammed's  time  as  heresy  itself. 
^'Necessity  knows  no  law"  is  a  principle  fully  ac- 
cepted in  Islam;  and  heresy  is  an  enemy  of  the 
faith  that  can  only  be  defeated  with  dialectic 
weapons.  So  the  religious  truths  preached  by 
Mohammed  have  not  been  altered  in  any  way; 
but  under  the  stress  of  necessity  they  have  been 
clad  in  modern  armour,  which  has  somewhat 
changed  their  aspect. 

Moreover,  Islam  has  a  theory,  which  alone  is 
sufficient  to  justify  the  whole  later  development 
of  doctrine  as  well  as  of  law.  This  theory,  whose 
importance  for  the  system  can  hardly  be  over- 
estimated, and  which,  nevertheless,  has  until  very 
recent  times  constantly  been  overlooked  by 
Western  students  of  Islam,  finds  its  classical  ex- 
pression in  the  following  words,  put  into  the 
mouth  of  Mohammed:  "My  community  will 
never  agree  in  an  error."  In  the  terms  more 
familiar  to  us,  this  means  that  the  Mohammedan 
Church  taken  as  a  whole  is  infallible;  that  all  the 
decisions  on  matters  practical  or  theoretical,  on 
which  it  is  agreed,  are  binding  upon  its  members. 
Nowhere  else  is  the  catholic  instinct  of  Islam 
more  clearly  expressed. 

A  faithful  Mohammedan  student,  after  having 


74  MOHAMMEDANISM 

struggled  through  a  handbook  of  law,  may  be 
vexed  by  a  doubt  as  to  whether  these  endless 
casuistic  precepts  have  been  rightly  deduced  from 
the  Qoran  and  the  Sacred  Tradition.  His  doubt, 
however,  will  at  once  be  silenced,  if  he  bears  in 
mind  that  Allah  speaks  more  plainly  to  him  by 
this  infallible  Agreement  (Ijmd')  of  the  Com- 
munity than  through  Qoran  and  Tradition ;  nay, 
that  the  contents  of  both  those  sacred  sources, 
without  this  perfect  intermediary,  would  be  to  a 
great  extent  unintelligible  to  him.  Even  the  dif- 
ferences between  the  schools  of  law  may  be  based 
on  this  theory  of  the  Ijma';  for,  does  not  the  in- 
fallible Agreement  of  the  Community  teach  us 
that  a  certain  diversity  of  opinion  is  a  merciful 
gift  of  God?  It  was  through  the  Agreement  that 
dogmatic  speculations  as  well  as  minute  discus- 
sions about  points  of  law  became  legitimate. 
The  stamp  of  Ijma'  was  essential  to  every  rule 
of  faith  and  life,  to  all  manners  and  customs. 

All  sorts  of  religious  ideas  and  practices,  which 
could  not  possibly  be  deduced  from  Mohammed's 
message,  entered  the  Moslim  world  by  the  per- 
mission of  Ijma'.  Here  we  need  think  only  of 
mysticism  and  of  the  cult  of  saints. 

Some  passages  of  the  Qoran  may  perhaps  be 
interpreted  in  such  a  way  that  we  hear  the  subtler 
strings  of  religious  emotion  vibrating  in  them. 
The  chief  impression  that  Mohammed's  Allah 
makes  before  the  Hijrah  is  that  of  awful  majesty, 
at  which  men  tremble  from  afar;  they  fear  His 


RELIGIOUS  DEVELOPMENT  OF  ISLAM      75 

punishment,  dare  hardly  be  sure  of  His  reward, 
and  hope  much  from  His  mercy.  This  impres- 
sion is  a  lasting  one;  but,  after  the  Hijrah,  Allah 
is  also  heard  quietly  reasoning  with  His  obedient 
servants,  giving  them  advice  and  commands, 
which  they  have  to  follow  in  order  to  frustrate  all 
resistance  to  His  authority  and  to  deserve  His 
satisfaction.  He  is  always  the  Lord,  the  King  of 
the  world,  who  speaks  to  His  humble  servants. 
But  the  lamp  which  Allah  had  caused  Mohammed 
to  hold  up  to  guide  mankind  with  its  light,  was 
raised  higher  and  higher  after  the  Prophet's 
death,  in  order  to  shed  its  light  over  an  ever 
increasing  part  of  humanity.  This  was  not  pos- 
sible, however,  without  its  reservoir  being  re- 
plenished with  all  the  different  kinds  of  oil  that 
had  from  time  immemorial  given  light  to  those 
different  nations.  The  oil  of  mysticism  came 
from  Christian  circles,  and  its  Neo-Platonic  ori- 
gin was  quite  unmistakable;  Persia  and  India 
also  contributed  to  it.  There  were  those  who,  by 
asceticism,  by  different  methods  of  mortifying 
the  flesh,  liberated  the  spirit  that  it  might  rise 
and  become  united  with  the  origin  of  all  being; 
to  such  an  extent,  that  with  some  the  profession 
of  faith  was  reduced  to  the  blasphemous  exclama- 
tion: "I  am  Allah."  Others  tried  to  become  free 
from  the  sphere  of  the  material  and  the  temporal 
by  certain  methods  of  thought,  combined  or  not 
combined  with  asceticism.  Here  the  necessity  of 
guidance  was  felt,  and  congregations  came  into 


76  MOHAMMEDANISM 

existence,  whose  purpose  it  was  to  permit  large 
groups  of  people  under  the  leadership  of  their 
sheikhs,  to  participate  simultaneously  in  the 
mystic  union.  The  influence  which  spread  most 
widely  was  that  of  leaders  like  Ghazali,  the 
Father  of  the  later  Mohammedan  Church,  who 
recommended  moral  purification  of  the  soul  as 
the  only  way  by  which  men  should  come  nearer 
to  God.  His  mysticism  wished  to  avoid  the  dan- 
ger of  pantheism,  to  which  so  many  others  were 
led  by  their  contemplations,  and  which  so  often 
engendered  disregard  of  the  revealed  law,  or  even 
of  morality.  Some  wanted  to  pass  over  the  gap 
between  the  Creator  and  the  created  along  a 
bridge  of  contemplation;  and  so,  driven  by  the 
fire  of  sublime  passion,  precipitate  themselves 
towards  the  object  of  their  love,  in  a  kind  of  rap- 
ture, which  poets  compare  with  intoxication. 
The  evil  world  said  that  the  impossibility  to  ac- 
complish this  heavenly  union  often  induced  those 
people  to  imitate  it  for  the  time  being  with  the 
earthly  means  of  wine  and  the  indulgence  in  sen- 
sual love. 

Characteristic  of  all  these  sorts  of  mysticism 
is  their  esoteric  pride.  All  these  emotions  are 
meant  only  for  a  small  number  of  chosen  ones. 
Even  Ghazali's  ethical  mysticism  is  not  for  the 
multitude.  The  development  of  Islam  as  a  whole, 
from  the  Hijrah  on,  has  always  been  greater  in 
breadth  than  in  depth;  and,  consequently,  its 
pedagogics  have  remained  defective.    Even  some 


RELIGIOUS  DEVELOPMENT  OF  ISLAM      ^y 

of  the  noblest  minds  in  Islam  restrict  true  re- 
ligious life  to  an  aristocracy,  and  accept  the 
ignorance  of  the  multitude  as  an  irremediable 
evil. 

Throughout  the  centuries  pantheistic  and  ani- 
mistic forms  of  mysticism  have  found  many 
adherents  among  the  Mohammedans;  but  the  in- 
fallible Agreement  has  persisted  in  calling  that 
heresy.  Ethical  mysticism,  since  Ghazali,  has 
been  fully  recognized ;  and,  v^ith  lav^  and  dogma, 
it  forms  the  sacred  trio  of  sciences  of  Islam,  to 
the  study  of  which  the  Arabic  humanistic  arts 
serve  as  preparatory  instruments.  All  other  sci- 
ences, hov^^ever  useful  and  necessary,  are  of  this 
world  and  have  no  value  for  the  world  to  come. 
The  unfaithful  appreciate  and  study  them  as  well 
as  do  the  Mohammedans;  but,  on  Mohammedan 
soil  they  must  be  coloured  with  a  Mohammedan 
hue,  and  their  results  may  never  clash  with  the 
three  religious  sciences.  Physics,  astronomy, 
and  philosophy  have  often  found  it  difficult  to  ob- 
serve this  restriction,  and  therefore  they  used  to 
be  at  least  slightly  suspected  in  pious  circles. 

Mysticism  did  not  only  owe  to  Ijma'  its  place 
in  the  sacred  trio,  but  it  succeeded,  better  than 
dogmatics,  in  confirming  its  right  with  words  of 
Allah  and  His  Prophet.  In  Islam  mysticism  and 
allegory  are  allied  in  the  usual  way;  for  the  illu- 
minati  the  words  had  quite  a  different  meaning 
than  for  common,  every-day  people.  So  the 
Qoran  was  made  to  speak  the  language  of  mys- 


78  MOHAMMEDANISM 

ticism;  and  mystic  commentaries  of  the  Holy 
Book  exist,  which,  with  total  disregard  for  philo- 
logical and  historical  objections,  explain  the 
verses  of  the  Revelation  as  expressions  of  the 
profoundest  soul  experiences.  Clear  utterances 
in  this  spirit  were  put  into  the  Prophet's  mouth; 
and,  like  the  canonists,  the  leaders  on  the  mystic 
Way  to  God  boasted  of  a  spiritual  genealogy 
which  went  back  to  Mohammed.  Thus  the 
Prophet  is  said  to  have  declared  void  all  knowl- 
edge and  fulfillment  of  the  law  which  lacks  mystic 
experience. 

Of  course  only  ''true"  mysticism  is  justified  by 
Ijma'  and  confirmed  by  the  evidence  of  Qoran 
and  Sunnah;  but,  about  the  bounds  between 
"true"  and  "false"  or  heretical  mysticism,  there 
exists  in  a  large  measure  the  well-known  diver- 
sity of  opinion  allowed  by  God's  grace.  The 
ethical  mysticism  of  al-Ghazali  is  generally  rec- 
ognized as  orthodox;  and  the  possibility  of  at- 
taining to  a  higher  spiritual  sphere  by  means 
of  methodic  asceticism  and  contemplation  is 
doubted  by  few.  The  following  opinion  has 
come  to  prevail  in  wide  circles:  the  Law  oflfers 
the  bread  of  life  to  all  the  faithful,  the  dogmatics 
are  the  arsenal  from  which  the  weapons  must  be 
taken  to  defend  the  treasures  of  religion  against 
unbelief  and  heresy,  but  mysticism  shows  the 
earthly  pilgrim  the  way  to  Heaven. 

It  was  a  much  lower  need  that  assured  the  cult 
of  saints  a  place  in  the  doctrine  and  practice  of 


RELIGIOUS  DEVELOPMENT  OF  ISLAM      79 

Islam.  As  strange  as  is  Mohammed's  trans- 
formation from  an  ordinary  son  of  man,  which  he 
wanted  to  be,  into  the  incarnation  of  Divine 
Light,  as  the  later  biographers  represent  him,  it 
is  still  more  astounding  that  the  intercession  of 
saints  should  have  become  indispensable  to  the 
community  of  Mohammed,  who,  according  to 
Tradition,  cursed  the  Jews  and  Christians  be- 
cause they  worshipped  the  shrines  of  their 
prophets.  Almost  every  Moslim  village  has  its 
patron  saint;  every  country  has  its  national 
saints;  every  province  of  human  life  has  its  own 
human  rulers,  who  are  intermediate  between  the 
Creator  and  common  mortals.  In  no  other  par- 
ticular has  Islam  more  fully  accommodated  it- 
self to  the  religions  it  supplanted.  The  popular 
practice,  which  is  in  many  cases  hardly  to  be 
distinguished  from  polytheism,  was,  to  a  great 
extent,  favoured  by  the  theory  of  the  interces- 
sion of  the  pious  dead,  of  whose  friendly  assist- 
ance people  might  assure  themselves  by  doing 
good  deeds  in  their  names  and  to  their  eternal 
advantage. 

The  ordinary  Moslim  visitor  of  the  graves  of 
saints  does  not  trouble  himself  with  this  ingen- 
ious compromise  between  the  severe  monotheism 
of  his  prophet  and  the  polytheism  of  his  ances- 
tors. He  is  firmly  convinced  that  the  best  way 
to  obtain  the  satisfaction  of  his  desire  after 
earthly  or  heavenly  goods  is  to  give  the  saint 
whose  special  care  these  are  what  he  likes  best; 


8o  MOHAMMEDANISM 

and  he  confidently  leaves  it  to  the  venerated  one 
to  settle  the  matter  vv^ith  Allah,  who  is  far  too 
high  above  the  ordinary  mortal  to  allow  of  direct 
contact. 

In  support  even  of  this  startling  deviation  from 
the  original,  traditions  have  been  devised.  More- 
over, the  veneration  of  human  beings  was  fa- 
voured by  some  forms  of  mysticism;  for,  like 
many  saints,  many  mystics  had  their  eccentrici- 
ties, and  it  was  much  to  the  advantage  of  the 
mystic  theologians  if  the  vulgar  could  be  per- 
suaded to  accept  their  aberrations  from  normal 
rules  of  life  as  peculiarities  of  holy  men.  But 
Ijma'  did  more  even  than  tradition  and  mysticism 
to  make  the  veneration  of  legions  of  saints  pos- 
sible in  the  temples  of  the  very  men  who  were 
obliged  by  their  ritual  law  to  say  to  Allah  several 
times  daily:  "Thee  only  do  we  worship  and  to 
Thee  alone  do  we  cry  for  help." 

In  the  tenth  century  of  our  era  Islam's  process 
of  accommodation  was  finished  in  all  its  essen- 
tials. From  this  time  forward,  if  circumstances 
were  favourable,  it  could  continue  the  execution 
of  its  world  conquering  plans  without  being  com- 
pelled to  assimilate  any  more  foreign  elements. 
Against  each  spiritual  asset  that  another  univer- 
sal religion  could  boast,  it  could  now  put  forward 
something  of  a  similar  nature,  but  which  still 
showed  characteristics  of  its  own,  and  the  superi- 
ority of  which  it  could  sustain  by  arguments  per- 
fectly satisfactory  to  its  followers.     From  that 


RELIGIOUS  DEVELOPMENT  OF  ISLAM      8i 

time  on,  Islam  strove  to  distinguish  itself  ever 
more  sharply  from  its  most  important  rivals. 
There  was  no  absolute  stagnation,  the  evolution 
v^as  not  entirely  stopped;  but  it  moved  at  a  much 
quieter  pace,  and  its  direction  wsls  governed  by 
internal  motives,  not  by  influences  from  outside. 
Moslim  Catholicism  had  attained  its  full  grow^th. 

We  cannot  v^ithin  the  small  compass  of  these 
lectures  consider  the  excrescences  of  the  normal 
Islam,  the  Shi'itic  ultras,  who  venerated  certain 
descendants  of  Mohammed  as  infallible  rulers  of 
the  world,  Ishma'ilites,  Qarmatians,  Assassins; 
nor  the  modern  bastards  of  Islam,  such  as  the 
Sheikhites,  the  Babi's,  the  Beha'is — who  have 
found  some  adherents  in  America — and  other 
sects,  which  indeed  sprang  up  on  Moslim  soil, 
but  deliberately  turned  to  non-Mohammedan 
sources  for  their  inspirations.  We  must  draw 
attention,  however,  to  protests  raised  by  certain 
minorities  against  some  of  the  ideas  and  practices 
which  had  been  definitely  adopted  by  the  ma- 
jority. 

In  the  midst  of  Mohammedan  Catholicism 
there  always  lived  and  moved  more  or  less  freely 
"protestant"  elements.  The  comparison  may 
even  be  continued,  with  certain  qualifications, 
and  we  may  speak  also  of  a  conservative  and  of 
a  liberal  protestantism  in  Islam.  The  conserva- 
tive protestantism  is  represented  by  the  Han- 
balitic  school  and  kindred  spirits,  who  most 
emphatically     preached     that     the     Agreement 


82  MOHAMMEDANISM 

(Ijma')  of  every  period  should  be  based  on  that 
of  the  "pious  ancestors."  They  therefore  tested 
every  dogma  and  practice  by  the  v^ords  and  deeds 
of  the  Prophet,  his  contemporaries,  and  the  lead- 
ers of  the  Community  in  the  first  decades  after 
Mohammed's  death.  In  their  eyes  the  Church  of 
later  days  had  degenerated;  and  they  declined  to 
consider  the  agreement  of  its  doctors  as  justify- 
ing the  penetration  into  Islam  of  ideas  and  usages 
of  foreign  origin.  The  cult  of  saints  v^as  rejected 
by  them  as  altogether  contradictory  to  the  Qoran 
and  the  genuine  tradition.  These  protestants  of 
Islam  may  be  compared  to  those  of  Christianity 
also  in  this  respect, — that  they  accepted  the  re- 
sults of  the  evolution  and  assimilation  of  the  first 
three  centuries  of  Islam,  but  rejected  later  addi- 
tions as  abuse  and  corruption.  When  on  the 
verge  of  our  nineteenth  century,  they  tried,  as 
true  Moslims,  to  force  by  material  means  their 
religious  conceptions  on  others,  they  v^ere  com- 
bated as  heretics  by  the  authorities  of  catholic 
Islam.  Central  and  Western  Arabia  formed  the 
battlefield  on  which  these  zealots,  called  Wah- 
habites  after  their  leader,  vv^ere  defeated  by  Mo- 
hammed Ali,  the  first  Khedive,  and  his  Egyptian 
army.  Since  they  have  given  up  their  efforts  at 
violent  reconstitution  of  w^hat  they  consider  to  be 
the  original  Islam,  they  are  left  alone,  and  their 
ideas  have  found  adherents  far  outside  Arabia, 
e.  g.j  in  British  India  and  in  Northern  and  Central 
Africa. 


RELIGIOUS  DEVELOPMENT  OE  ISLAM      83 

In  still  quite  another  way  many  Moslims  who 
found  their  freedom  of  thought  or  action  impeded 
by  the  prevailing  law  and  doctrine,  have  returned 
to  the  origin  of  their  religion.  Too  much  at- 
tached to  the  traditions  of  their  faith,  deliberately 
to  disregard  these  impediments,  they  tried  to  find 
in  the  Qoran  and  Tradition  arguments  in  favour 
of  what  was  dictated  to  them  by  Reason;  and 
they  found  those  arguments  as  easily  as  former 
generations  had  found  the  bases  on  which  to 
erect  their  casuistry,  their  dogma,  and  their  mys- 
ticism. This  implied  an  interpretation  of  the 
oldest  sources  independent  from  the  catholic  de- 
velopment of  Islam,  and  in  contradiction  with  the 
general  opinion  of  the  canonists,  according  to 
whom,  since  the  fourth  or  fifth  century  of  the 
Hijrah,  no  one  is  qualified  for  such  free  research. 
A  certain  degree  of  independence  of  mind,  to- 
gether with  a  strong  attachment  to  their  spiritual 
past,  has  given  rise  in  the  Moslim  world  to  this 
sort  of  liberal  protestantism,  which  in  our  age 
has  many  adherents  among  the  Mohammedans 
who  have  come  in  contact  with  modern  civili- 
zation. 

That  the  partisans  of  all  these  different  concep- 
tions could  remain  together  as  the  children  of  one 
spiritual  family,  is  largely  owing  to  the  elastic 
character  of  Ijma',  the  importance  of  which  is 
to  some  extent  acknowledged  by  Catholics  and 
Protestants,  by  moderns  and  conservatives.  It 
has  never  been  contested  that  the  community, 


84  MOHAMMEDANISM 

whose  agreement  was  the  test  of  truth,  should 
not  consist  of  the  faithful  masses,  but  of  the 
expert  elect.  In  a  Christian  church  we  should 
have  spoken  of  the  clergy,  with  a  further  defini- 
tion of  the  organs  through  which  it  was  to  ex- 
press itself:  synod,  council,  or  Pope.  Islam  has 
no  clergy,  as  we  have  seen;  the  qualification  of 
a  man  to  have  his  own  opinion  depends  entirely 
upon  the  scope  of  his  knowledge  or  rather  of  his 
erudition.  There  is  no  lack  of  standards,  fixed 
by  Mohammedan  authorities,  in  which  the  re- 
quirements for  a  scholar  to  qualify  him  for  Ijma' 
are  detailed.  The  principal  criterion  is  the 
knowledge  of  the  canon  law;  quite  what  we 
should  expect  from  the  history  of  the  evolution 
of  Islam.  But,  of  course,  dogmatists  and  mys- 
tics had  also  their  own  ''agreements"  on  the 
questions  concerning  them,  and  through  the 
compromise  between  Law,  Dogma,  and  Mysti- 
cism, there  could  not  fail  to  come  into  existence 
a  kind  of  mixed  Ijma'.  Moreover,  the  standards 
and  definitions  could  have  only  a  certain  theoreti- 
cal value,  as  there  never  has  existed  a  body  that 
could  speak  in  the  name  of  all.  The  decisions  of 
Ijma'  were  therefore  to  be  ascertained  only  in  a 
vague  and  general  way.  The  speakers  were  indi- 
viduals whose  own  authority  depended  on  Ijma', 
whereas  Ijma'  should  have  been  their  collec- 
tive decision.  Thus  it  was  possible  for  innumer- 
able shades  of  Catholicism  and  protestantism  to 
live  under  one  roof;  with  a  good  deal  of  friction, 


RELIGIOUS  DEVELOPMENT  OF  ISLAM      85 

it  is  true,  but  without  definite  breach  or  schism, 
no  one  sect  being  able  to  eject  another  from  the 
community. 

Moslim  political  authorities  are  bound  not  only 
to  extend  the  domain  of  Islam,  but  also  to  keep 
the  community  in  the  right  path  in  its  life  and 
doctrine.  This  task  they  have  always  conceived 
in  accordance  with  their  political  interests;  Islam 
has  had  its  religious  persecutions  but  tolerance 
was  very  usual,  and  even  official  favouring  of 
heresy  not  quite  exceptional  with  Moslim  rulers. 
Regular  maintenance  of  religious  discipline  ex- 
isted nowhere.  Thus  in  the  bond  of  political 
obedience  elements  which  might  otherwise  have 
been  scattered  were  held  together.  The  political 
decay  of  Islam  in  our  day  has  done  away  with 
what  had  been  left  of  official  power  to  settle  re- 
ligious differences  and  any  organization  of  spir- 
itual authority  never  existed.  Hence  it  is  only 
natural  that  the  diversity  of  opinion  allowed  by 
the  grace  of  Allah  now  shows  itself  on  a  greater 
scale  than  ever  before. 


Ill 

THE  POLITICAL  DEVELOPMENT 
OF  ISLAM 

In  the  first  period  of  Islam,  the  functions  of 
what  we  call  Church  and  what  we  call  State  were 
exercised  by  the  same  authority.  Its  political  de- 
velopment is  therefore  of  great  importance  for 
the  understanding  of  its  religious  growth. 

The  Prophet,  when  he  spoke  in  the  name  of 
God,  was  the  lawgiver  of  his  community,  and  it 
was  rightly  understood  by  the  later  Faithful  that 
his  indispensable  explanations  of  God's  word  had 
also  legislative  power.  From  the  time  of  the 
Hijrah  the  nature  of  the  case  made  him  the  ruler, 
the  judge,  and  the  military  commander  of  his 
theocratic  state.  Moreover,  Allah  expressly  de- 
manded of  the  Moslims  that  they  should  obey 
"the  Messenger  of  God,  and  those  amongst  them 
who  have  authority."  ^  We  see  by  this  expres- 
sion that  Mohammed  shared  his  temporal  au- 
thority with  others.  His  co-rulers  were  not 
appointed,  their  number  was  nowhere  defined, 
they  were  not  a  closed  circle;  they  were  the  no- 
tables of  the  tribes  or  other  groups  who  had 
arrayed  themselves  under  Mohammed's  author- 

1  Qoran,  iv.,  6%% 


POLITICAL  DEVELOPMENT  OF  ISLAM      87 

ity,  and  a  few  who  had  gained  influence  by  their 
personality.  In  their  councils  Mohammed's  word 
had  no  decisive  power,  except  when  he  spoke  in 
the  name  of  Allah;  and  we  know  how  careful  he 
was  to  give  oracles  only  in  cases  of  extreme  need. 

In  the  last  years  of  Mohammed's  life  his  author- 
ity became  extended  over  a  large  part  of  Arabia; 
but  he  did  very  little  in  the  way  of  centralization 
of  government.  He  sent  ^dmils,  i.  e.,  agents,  to 
the  conquered  tribes  or  villages,  who  had  to  see 
that,  in  the  first  place,  the  most  important  regu- 
lations of  the  Qoran  were  followed,  and,  secondly, 
that  the  tax  into  which  the  duty  of  almsgiving 
had  been  converted  was  promptly  paid,  and  that 
the  portion  of  it  intended  for  the  central  fund  at 
Medina  was  duly  delivered.  After  the  great  con- 
quests, the  governors  of  provinces  of  the  Moslim 
Empire,  who  often  exercised  a  despotic  power, 
were  called  by  the  same  title  of  *dmils.  The 
agents  of  Mohammed,  however,  did  not  possess 
such  unlimited  authority.  It  was  only  gradually 
that  the  Arabs  learned  the  value  of  good  disci- 
pline and  submission  to  a  strong  guidance,  and 
adopted  the  forms  of  orderly  government  as  they 
found  them  in  the  conquered  lands. 

Through  the  death  of  Mohammed  everything 
became  uncertain.  The  combination  under  one 
leadership  of  such  a  heterogeneous  mass  as  that 
of  his  Arabs  would  have  been  unthinkable  a  few 
years  before.  It  became  quite  natural,  though, 
as  soon  as  the  Prophet's  mouth  was  recognized 


88  MOHAMMEDANISM 

as  the  organ  of  Allah's  voice.  Must  this  mon- 
archy be  continued  after  Allah's  mouthpiece  had 
ceased  to  exist?  It  was  not  at  all  certain.  The 
force  of  circumstances  and  the  energy  of  some 
of  Mohammed's  counselors  soon  led  to  the  nec- 
essary decisions.  A  number  of  the  notables  of 
the  community  succeeded  in  forcing  upon  the 
hesitating  or  unwilling  members  the  acceptance 
of  the  monarchy  as  a  permanent  institution. 
There  must  be  a  khalif,  a  deputy  of  the  Prophet 
in  all  his  functions  (except  that  of  messenger 
of  God),  who  would  be  ruler  and  judge  and  leader 
of  public  worship,  but  above  all  amtr  al-mu'mimn, 
"Commander  of  the  Faithful,"  in  the  struggle 
both  against  the  apostate  Arabs  and  against  the 
hostile  tribes  on  the  northern  border. 

But  for  the  military  success  of  the  first  khalifs 
Islam  would  never  have  become  a  universal  re- 
ligion. Every  exertion  was  made  to  keep  the 
troops  of  the  Faithful  complete.  The  leaders 
followed  only  Mohammed's  example  when  they 
represented  fighting  for  Allah's  cause  as  the  most 
enviable  occupation.  The  duty  of  military  service 
was  constantly  impressed  upon  the  Moslims;  the 
lust  of  booty  and  the  desire  for  martyrdom,  to 
which  the  Qoran  assigned  the  highest  reward, 
were  excited  to  the  utmost.  At  a  later  period,  it 
became  necessary  in  the  interests  of  order  to 
temper  the  result  of  this  excitement  by  traditions 
in  which  those  of  the  Faithful  who  died  in  the 
exercise  of  a  peaceful,  honest  profession  were 


POLITICAL  DEVELOPMENT  OF  ISLAM      89 

declared  to  be  witnesses  to  the  Faith  as  well  as 
those  who  were  slain  in  battle  against  the  ene- 
mies of  God, — traditions  in  which  the  real  and 
greater  holy  war  was  described  as  the  struggle 
against  evil  passions.  The  necessity  of  such  a 
mitigating  reaction,  the  spirit  in  which  the  chap- 
ters on  holy  war  of  Mohammedan  lawbooks  are 
conceived,  and  the  galvanizing  power  which 
down  to  our  own  day  is  contained  in  a  call  to 
arms  in  the  name  of  Allah,  all  this  shows  that 
in  the  beginning  of  Islam  the  love  of  battle  had 
been  instigated  at  the  expense  of  everything  else. 
The  institution  of  the  Khalifate  had  hardly 
been  agreed  upon  when  the  question  of  who 
should  occupy  it  became  the  subject  of  violent 
dissension.  The  first  four  khalifs,  whose  reigns 
occupied  the  first  thirty  years  after  Mohammed's 
death,  were  Qoraishites,  tribesmen  of  the 
Prophet,  and  moreover  men  who  had  been  his 
intimate  friends.  The  sacred  tradition  relates  a 
saying  of  Mohammed:  "The  imams  are  from 
Qoraish,"  intended  to  confine  the  Khalifate  to 
men  from  that  tribe.  History,  however,  shows 
that  this  edict  was  forged  to  give  the  stamp  of 
legality  to  the  results  of  a  long  political  struggle. 
For  at  Mohammed's  death  the  Medinese  began 
fiercely  contesting  the  claims  of  the  Qoraishites; 
and  during  the  reign  of  All,  the  fourth  KhaHf, 
the  Kharijites  rebelled,  demanding,  as  democratic 
rigorists,  the  free  election  of  khalifs  without  re- 
striction to  the  tribe  of  Qoraish  or  to  any  other 


90  MOHAMMEDANISM 

descent.  Their  standard  of  requirements  con- 
tained only  religious  and  moral  qualities;  and 
they  claimed  for  the  community  the  continual 
control  of  the  chosen  leader's  behaviour  and  the 
right  of  deposing  him  as  soon  as  they  found  him 
failing  in  the  fulfilment  of  his  duties.  Their 
anarchistic  revolutions,  w^hich  during  more  than 
a  century  occasionally  gave  much  trouble  to  the 
Khalifate,  caused  Islam  to  accentuate  the  aristo- 
cratic character  of  its  monarchy.  They  w^ere 
overcome  and  reduced  to  a  sect,  the  survivors  of 
v^hich  still  exist  in  South-Eastern  Arabia,  in  Zan- 
zibar, and  in  Northern  Africa;  hov^ever,  the  ac- 
tual life  of  these  communities  resembles  that  of 
their  spiritual  forefathers  to  a  very  remote  de- 
gree. 

Another  democratic  doctrine,  still  more  radi- 
cal than  that  of  the  Kharijites,  makes  even 
non-Arabs  eligible  for  the  Khalifate.  It  must 
have  had  a  considerable  number  of  adherents,  for 
the  tradition  v^hich  makes  the  Prophet  respon- 
sible for  it  is  to  be  found  in  the  canonic  collec- 
tions. Later  generations,  however,  rendered  it 
harmless  by  exegesis;  they  maintained  that  in 
this  text  "coii^mander"  meant  only  subordinate 
chiefs,  and  not  ''the  Commander  of  the  Faith- 
ful." It  became  a  dogma  in  the  orthodox  Mo- 
hammedan woild,  respected  up  to  the  sixteenth 
century,  that  only  members  of  the  tribe  of 
Qoraish  could  take  the  place  of  the  Messenger 
of  God. 


POLITICAL  DEVELOPMENT  OF  ISLAM      91 

The  chance  of  success  was  greater  for  the  legiti- 
mists than  for  the  democratic  party.  The  former 
wished  to  make  the  Khalifate  the  privilege  of  Ali, 
the  cousin  and  son-in-law  of  the  Prophet,  and  his 
descendants.  At  first  the  community  did  not 
take  much  notice  of  that  "House  of  Mohammed" ; 
and  it  did  not  occur  to  any  one  to  give  them  a 
special  part  in  the  direction  of  affairs.  Ali  and 
Fatima  themselves  asked  to  be  placed  in  posses- 
sion only  of  certain  goods  which  had  belonged  to 
Mohammed,  but  which  the  first  khalifs  would  not 
allow  to  be  regarded  as  his  personal  property; 
they  maintained  that  the  Prophet  had  had  the 
disposal  of  them  not  as  owner,  but  as  head  of  the 
state.  This  narrow  greed  and  absence  of  political 
insight  seemed  to  be  hereditary  in  the  descend- 
ants of  Ali  and  Fatima;  for  there  was  no  lack  of 
superstitious  reverence  for  them  in  later  times, 
and  if  one  of  them  had  possessed  something  of 
the  political  talent  of  the  best  Omayyads  and 
Abbasids  he  would  certainly  have  been  able  to 
supplant  them. 

After  the  third  Khalif,  Othman,  had  been  mur- 
dered by  his  political  opponents,  Ali  became  his 
successor;  but  he  was  more  remote  than  any  of 
his  predecessors  from  enjoying  general  sympathy. 
At  that  time  the  Shi'ah,  the  'Tarty"  of  the  House 
of  the  Prophet,  gradually  arose,  which  maintained 
that  Ali  should  have  been  the  first  Khalif,  and 
that  his  descendants  should  succeed  him.  The 
veneration  felt  for  those  descendants  increased 


92  MOHAMMEDANISM 

in  the  same  proportion  as  that  for  the  Prophet 
himself;  and  moreover,  there  were  at  all  times 
malcontents,  whose  advantage  would  be  in  join- 
ing any  revolution  against  the  existing  govern- 
ment. Yet  the  Alids  never  succeeded  in  accom- 
plishing anything  against  the  dynasties  of  the 
Omayyads,  the  Abbasids,  and  the  Ottomans,  ex- 
cept in  a  few  cases  of  transitory  importance  only. 
The  Fatimite  dynasty,  of  rather  doubtful  de- 
scent, which  ruled  a  part  of  Northern  Africa  and 
Egypt  in  the  tenth  century  a.d.,  was  completely 
suppressed  after  some  two  and  a  half  centuries. 
The  sherifs  who  have  ruled  Morocco  for  more 
than  950  years  were  not  chiefs  of  a  party  that  con- 
sidered the  legality  of  their  leadership  a  dogma; 
they  owe  their  local  Khalifate  far  more  to  the 
out-of-the-way  position  of  their  country  which 
prevented  Abbasids  and  Turks  from  meddling 
with  their  affairs.  Otherwise,  they  would  have 
been  obliged  at  any  rate  to  acknowledge  the  sov- 
ereignty of  the  Great  Lord  of  Constantinople. 
This  was  the  case  with  the  sherifs  of  Mecca,  who 
ever  since  the  twelfth  century  have  regarded  the 
sacred  territory  as  their  domain.  Their  princi- 
pality arose  out  of  the  general  political  disturb- 
ance and  the  division  of  the  Mohammedan  empire 
into  a  number  of  kingdoms,  whose  mutual  strife 
prevented  them  from  undertaking  military  opera- 
tions in  the  desert.  These  Sherifs  raised  no  claim 
to  the  Khalifate;  and  the  Shi'itic  tendencies  they 
displayed  in  the  Middle  Ages  had  no  political  sig- 


POLITICAL  DEVELOPMENT  OF  ISLAM      93 

nificance,  although  they  had  intimate  relations 
with  the  Zaidites  of  Southern  Arabia.  As  first 
Egypt  and  afterwards  Turkey  made  their  protec- 
torate over  the  holy  cities  more  effective,  the 
princes  of  Mecca  became  orthodox. 

The  Zaidites,  who  settled  in  Yemen  from  the 
ninth  century  on,  are  really  Shi'ites,  although  of 
the  most  moderate  kind.  Without  striving  after 
expansion  outside  Arabia,  they  firmly  refuse  to 
give  up  their  own  Khalifate  and  to  acknowledge 
the  sovereignty  of  any  non-Alid  ruler;  the  efforts 
of  the  Turks  to  subdue  them  or  to  make  a  com- 
promise with  them  have  had  no  lasting  results. 
This  is  the  principal  obstacle  against  their  being 
included  in  the  orthodox  community,  although 
their  admission  is  defended,  even  under  present 
circumstances,  by  many  non-political  Moslim 
scholars.  The  Zaidites  are  the  remnant  of  the 
original  Arabian  Shi'ah,  which  for  centuries  has 
counted  adherents  in  all  parts  of  the  Moslim 
world,  and  some  of  whose  tenets  have  penetrated 
Mohammedan  orthodoxy.  The  almost  general 
veneration  of  the  sayyids  and  sherifs,  as  the  de- 
scendants of  Mohammed  are  entitled,  is  due  to 
this  influence. 

The  Shi'ah  outside  Arabia,  whose  adherents 
used  to  be  persecuted  by  the  official  authorities, 
not  without  good  cause,  became  the  receptacle  of 
all  the  revolutionary  and  heterodox  ideas  main- 
tained by  the  converted  peoples.  Alongside  of  the 
visible  political  history  of  Islam  of  the  first  cen- 


94  MOHAMMEDANISM 

turies,  these  circles  built  up  their  evolution  of  the 
unseen  community,  the  only  true  one,  guided  by 
the  Holy  Family,  and  the  reality  was  to  them  a 
continuous  denial  of  the  postulates  of  religion. 
Their  first  imam  or  successor  of  the  Prophet  was 
AH,  whose  divine  right  had  been  unjustly  denied 
by  the  three  usurpers,  Abu  Bakr,  Omar,  and 
Othman,  and  who  had  exercised  actual  authority 
for  a  few  years  in  constant  strife  with  Kharijites 
and  Omayyads.  The  efforts  of  his  legitimate  suc- 
cessors to  assert  their  authority  were  constantly 
drowned  in  blood;  until,  at  last,  there  were  no 
more  candidates  for  the  dangerous  office.  This 
prosaic  fact  was  converted  by  the  adherents  of 
the  House  of  Mohammed  into  the  romance,  that 
the  last  imam  of  a  line  of  seven  according  to  some, 
and  twelve  according  to  others,  had  disappeared 
in  a  mysterious  way,  to  return  at  the  end  of  days 
as  Mahdi,  the  Guided  One,  who  should  restore 
the  political  order  which  had  been  disturbed  ever 
since  Mohammed's  death.  Until  his  reappear- 
ance there  is  nothing  left  for  the  community  to 
do  but  to  await  his  advent,  under  the  guidance  of 
their  secular  rulers  (e.  g.,  the  shahs  of  Persia) 
and  enlightened  by  their  authoritative  scholars 
(mujtahids)y  who  explain  faith  and  law  to  them 
from  the  tradition  of  the  Sacred  Family.  The 
great  majority  of  Mohammedans,  as  they  do  not 
accept  this  legitimist  theory,  are  counted  by  the 
Shi'ah  outside  Arabia  as  unclean  heretics,  if  not 
as  unbelievers. 


POLITICAL  DEVELOPMENT  OF  ISLAM      95 

At  the  beginning  of  the  fifteenth  century  this 
Shi'ah  found  its  political  centre  in  Persia,  and 
opposed  itself  fanatically  to  the  Sultan  of  Turkey, 
who  at  about  the  same  time  came  to  stand  at  the 
head  of  orthodox  Islam.  All  differences  of  doc- 
trine were  now  sharpened  and  embittered  by 
political  passion,  and  the  efforts  of  single  enlight- 
ened princes  or  scholars  to  induce  the  various 
peoples  to  extend  to  each  other,  across  the  politi- 
cal barriers,  the  hand  of  brotherhood  in  the  prin- 
ciples of  faith,  all  failed.  It  is  only  in  the  last  few 
years  that  the  general  political  distress  of  Islam 
has  inclined  the  estranged  relatives  towards  rec- 
onciliation. 

Besides  the  veneration  of  the  Alids,  orthodox 
Islam  has  adopted  another  Shi'itic  element,  the 
expectation  of  the  Mahdi,  which  we  have  just 
mentioned.  Most  Sunnites  expect  that  at  the  end 
of  the  world  there  will  come  from  the  House  of 
Mohammed  a  successor  to  him,  guided  by  Allah, 
who  will  maintain  the  revealed  law  as  faithfully 
as  the  first  four  khalifs  did  according  to  the  ideal- 
ized history,  and  who  will  succeed  with  God's 
help  in  making  Islam  victorious  over  the  whole 
world.  That  the  chiliastic  kingdom  of  the  Mahdi 
must  in  the  end  be  destroyed  by  Anti-Christ,  in 
order  that  Jesus  may  be  able  once  more  to  re- 
establish the  holy  order  before  the  Resurrection, 
was  a  necessary  consequence  of  the  amalgama- 
tion of  the  political  expectations  formed  under 


96  MOHAMMEDANISM 

Shi'itic  influence,  with  eschatological  conceptions 

formerly  borrowed  by  Islam  from  Christianity. 

The  orthodox  Mahdi  differs  from  that  of  the 
Shi'ah  in  many  ways.  He  is  not  an  imam  return- 
ing after  centuries  of  disappearance,  but  a  de- 
scendant of  Mohammed,  coming  into  the  world 
in  the  ordinary  way  to  fulfil  the  ideal  of  the  Khal- 
ifate.  He  does  not  re-establish  the  legitimate  line 
of  successors  of  the  Prophet;  but  he  renews  the 
glorious  tradition  of  the  Khalifate,  which  after 
the  first  thirty  years  was  dragged  into  the  general 
deterioration,  common  to  all  human  beings.  The 
prophecies  concerning  his  appearance  are  some- 
times of  an  equally  supernatural  kind  as  those  of 
the  Shi'ites,  so  that  the  period  of  his  coming  has 
passed  more  and  more  from  the  political  sphere 
to  which  it  originally  belonged,  into  that  of  escha- 
tology.  Yet,  naturally,  it  is  easier  for  a  popular 
leader  to  make  himself  regarded  as  the  orthodox 
Mahdi  than  to  play  the  part  of  the  returned 
imam.  Mohammedan  rulers  have  had  more  trou- 
ble than  they  cared  for  with  candidates  for  the 
dignity  of  the  Mahdi;  and  it  is  not  surprising  that 
in  official  Turkish  circles  there  is  a  tendency  to 
simplify  the  Messianic  expectation  by  giving  the 
fullest  weight  to  this  traditional  saying  of  Mo- 
hammed: 'There  is  no  mahdi  but  Jesus,''  seeing 
that  Jesus  must  come  from  the  clouds,  whereas 
other  mahdis  may  arise  from  human  society. 

In  the  orthodox  expectation  of  the  Mahdi  the 
Moslim  theory  has  most  sharply  expressed  its 


POLITICAL  DEVELOPMENT  OF  ISLAM      97 

condemnation  of  the  later  political  history  of 
Islam.  In  the  course  of  the  first  century  after 
the  Hijrah  the  Qoran  scholars  (qdrts)  arose;  and 
these  in  turn  were  succeeded  by  the  men  of  tradi- 
tion (ahl  al-hadtth)  and  by  the  canonists  (faqths) 
of  later  times.  These  learned  men  (tdamd^)  would 
not  endure  any  interference  with  their  right  to 
state  with  authority  what  Islam  demanded  of  its 
leaders.  They  laid  claim  to  an  interpretative  au- 
thority concerning  the  divine  law,  which  bordered 
upon  supreme  legislative  power;  their  agreement 
(Ijma')  was  that  of  the  infallible  community. 
But  just  as  beside  this  legislative  agreement,  a 
dogmatic  and  a  mystic  agreement  grew  up,  in 
the  same  way  there  was  a  separate  Ijma'  regard- 
ing the  political  government,  upon  which  the 
canonists  could  exercise  only  an  indirect  influ- 
ence. In  other  words  since  the  accession  of  the 
Omayyad  khalifs,  the  actual  authority  rested  in 
the  hands  of  dynasties,  and  under  the  Abbasids 
government  assumed  even  a  despotic  character. 
This  relation  between  the  governors  and  gov- 
erned, originally  alien  to  Islam,  was  not  changed 
by  the  transference  of  the  actual  power  into  the 
hands  of  wezlrs  and  officers  of  the  bodyguard ;  nor 
yet  by  the  disintegration  of  the  empire  into  a 
number  of  small  despotisms,  the  investiture  of 
which  by  the  khalif  became  a  mere  formality. 
Dynastic  and  political  questions  were  settled  in  a 
comparatively  small  circle,  by  court  intrigue, 
stratagems,  and  force;  and  the  canonists,  like  the 


98  MOHAMMEDANISM 

people,  were  bound  to  accept  the  results.  Politi- 
cally inclined  interpreters  of  the  law  might  try  to 
justify  their  compulsory  assent  to  the  facts  by 
theories  about  the  Ijma'  of  the  notables  residing 
in  the  capital,  who  took  the  urgent  decisions 
about  the  succession,  which  decisions  were  subse- 
quently confirmed  by  general  homage  to  the  new 
prince;  but  they  had  no  illusions  about  the  real 
influence  of  the  community  upon  the  choice  of  its 
leader.  The  most  independent  scholars  made  no 
attempt  to  disguise  the  fact  that  the  course  which 
political  affairs  had  taken  was  the  clearest  proof 
of  the  moral  degeneration  which  had  set  in,  and 
they  pronounced  an  equally  bold  and  merciless 
criticism  upon  the  government  in  all  its  depart- 
ments. It  became  a  matter  of  course  that  a  pious 
scholar  must  keep  himself  free  from  all  inter- 
course with  state  officials,  on  pain  of  losing  his 
reputation. 

The  bridge  across  the  gulf  that  separated  the 
spiritual  from  the  temporal  authorities  was 
formed  by  those  state  officials  who,  for  the  prac- 
tice of  their  office,  needed  a  knowledge  of  the 
divine  law,  especially  the  qddhts.  It  was  origi- 
nally the  duty  of  these  judges  to  decide  all  legal 
differences  between  Mohammedans,  or  men  of 
other  creeds  under  Mohammedan  protection,  who 
called  for  their  decision.  The  actual  division  be- 
tween the  rulers  and  the  interpreters  of  the  law 
caused  an  ever-increasing  limitation  of  the  au- 
thority of  the  qdhdts.    The  laws  of  marriage,  fam- 


POLITICAL  DEVELOPMENT  OF  ISLAM      99 

ily,  and  inheritance  remained,  however,  their 
inalienable  territory;  and  a  number  of  other  mat- 
ters, in  which  too  great  a  religious  interest  was 
involved  to  leave  them  to  the  caprice  of  the  gov- 
ernors or  to  the  customary  law  outside  Islam, 
were  usually  included.  But  as  the  qddhts  were 
appointed  by  the  governors,  they  were  obliged  in 
the  exercise  of  their  office  to  give  due  considera- 
tion to  the  wishes  of  their  constituents;  and 
moreover  they  were  often  tainted  by  what  was 
regarded  in  Mohammedan  countries  as  insepa- 
rable from  government  employment :  bribery. 

On  this  account,  the  canonists,  although  it  was 
from  their  ranks  that  the  officials  of  the  qddht 
court  were  to  be  drawn,  considered  no  words  too 
strong  to  express  their  contempt  for  the  office 
of  qddht.  In  handbooks  of  the  Law  of  all  times, 
the  qddhts  ^^oj  our  time''  are  represented  as  unscru- 
pulous beings,  whose  unreliable  judgments  were 
chiefly  dictated  by  their  greed.  Such  an  opinion 
would  not  have  acquired  full  force,  if  it  had  not 
been  ascribed  to  Mohammed;  in  fact,  the  Prophet, 
according  to  a  tradition,  had  said  that  out  of  three 
qddhts  two  are  destined  to  Hell.  Anecdotes  of 
famous  scholars  who  could  not  be  prevailed  upon 
by  imprisonment  or  castigation  to  accept  the 
office  of  qddht  are  innumerable.  Those  who  suc- 
cumbed to  the  temptation  forfeited  the  respect  of 
the  circle  to  which  they  had  belonged. 

I  once  witnessed  a  case  of  this  kind,  and  the 
former  friends  of  the  qddht  did  not  spare  him 


100  MOHAMMEDANISM 

their  bitter  reproaches.     He  remarked  that  the 
judge,  whose  duty  it  was  to  maintain  the  divine 
law,  verily  held  a  noble  office.    They  refuted  this 
by  saying  that  this  defence  was  admissible  only 
for  earlier  and   better  times,   but  not   for   "the 
qddhh  of  our  time.''     To  which  he  cuttingly  re- 
plied: ''And  ye,  are  ye  canonists  of  the  better,  the 
ancient  time?"     In  truth,  the  students  of  sacred 
science  are  just  as  much  "of  our  time"  as  the 
qddhts.     Even  in  the  eleventh  century  the  great 
theologian  Ghazali  counted  them  all  equal.'    Not 
a  few  of  them  give  their  authoritative  advice  ac- 
cording to  the  wishes  of  the  highest  bidder  or  of 
him  who  has  the  greatest  influence,  hustle  for  in- 
come from  pious  institutions,  and  vie  with  each 
other   in    a   revel    of    casuistic    subtleties.      But 
among  those  scholars  there  are  and  always  have 
been  some  who,  in  poverty  and  simplicity,  devote 
their  life  to  the  study  of  Allah's  law  with  the  sole 
object  of  pleasing  him;  among  the  qddhh  such 
are  not  easily  to  be  found.     Amongst  the  other 
state  officials  the  title  of  qddhts  may  count  as  a 
spiritual  one,  and  the  public  may  to  a  certain  ex- 
tent share  this  reverence;  but  in  the  eyes  of  the 
pious  and  of  the  canonists  such  glory  is  only 
reflected   from   the   clerical   robe,   in   which   the 
worldling  disguises  himself. 

1  Ghazali,  Ihya,  book  i.,  ch.  6,  quotes  the  words  of  a  pious  scholar 
of  the  olden  time:  "The  'ulama'  will  [on  the  Day  of  Judgment]  be 
gathered  amongst  the  prophets,  but  the  qddhis  amongst  the  temporal 
rulers."  Ghazali  adds :  "alike  with  these  qddhis  are  all  those  canonists 
who  make  use  of  their  learning  for  worldly  purposes." 


POLITICAL  DEVELOPMENT  OF  ISLAM     loi 

To  the  mujtt  criticism  is  somewhat  more  fa- 
vourable than  to  the  qddht.  A  mufti  is  not  neces- 
sarily an  official;  every  canonist  who,  at  the  re- 
quest of  a  layman,  expounds  to  him  the  meaning 
of  the  law  on  any  particular  point  and  gives  a 
fatwa,  acts  as  a  mujtt.  Be  the  question  in  refer- 
ence to  the  behaviour  of  the  individual  towards 
God  or  towards  man,  with  regard  to  his  position 
in  a  matter  of  litigation,  in  criticism  of  a  state 
regulation  or  of  a  sentence  of  a  judge,  or  out  of 
pure  love  of  knowledge,  the  scholar  is  morally 
obliged  to  the  best  of  his  knowledge  to  enlighten 
the  enquirer.  He  ought  to  do  this  for  the  love  of 
God;  but  he  must  live,  and  the  enquirer  is  ex- 
pected to  give  him  a  suitable  present  for  his  trou- 
ble. This  again  gives  rise  to  the  danger  that  he 
who  offers  most  is  attended  to  first;  and  that  for 
the  liberal  rich  man  a  dish  is  prepared  from  the 
casuistic  store,  as  far  as  possible  according  to  his 
taste.  The  temptation  is  by  no  means  so  great 
as  that  to  which  the  qddht  is  exposed;  especially 
since  the  office  of  judge  has  become  an  article  of 
commerce,  so  that  the  very  first  step  towards  the 
possession  of  it  is  in  the  direction  of  Hell.  More- 
'  over  in  "these  degenerate  times" — which  have 
existed  for  about  ten  centuries — the  acceptance 
of  an  appointment  to  the  function  of  qddht  is  not 
regarded  as  a  duty,  while  a  competent  scholar 
may  only  refuse  to  give  a  jatwa  under  exceptional 
circumstances.     Still,  an  unusually  strong  char- 


102  MOHAMMEDANISM 

acter  is  needed  by  the  mujtt,  if  he  is  not  to  fall 
into  the  snares  of  the  world. 

Besides  qddhh  who  settle  legal  disputes  of  a 
certain  kind  according  to  the  revealed  law,  the 
state  requires  its  own  advisers  who  can  explain 
that  law,  /.  e.y  official  muftis.  Firstly,  the  govern- 
ment itself  may  be  involved  in  a  litigation;  more- 
over in  some  government  regulations  it  may  be 
necessary  to  avoid  giving  offence  to  canonists  and 
their  strict  disciples.  In  such  cases  it  is  better  to 
be  armed  beforehand  with  an  expert  opinion  than 
to  be  exposed  to  dangerous  criticism  which  might 
find  an  echo  in  a  wide  circle.  The  official  mufti 
must  therefore  be  somewhat  pliable,  to  say  the 
least.  Moreover,  any  private  person  has  the 
right  to  put  questions  to  the  state  mufti;  and  the 
qddhi  court  is  bound  to  take  his  answers  into  ac- 
count in  its  decisions.  In  this  way  the  muftis 
have  absorbed  a  part  of  the  duties  of  the  qddhis, 
and  so  their  office  is  dragged  along  in  the  degra- 
dation that  the  unofficial  canonists  denounce  un- 
weariedly  in  their  writings  and  in  their  teaching. 

The  way  in  which  the  most  important  mufti 
places  are  filled  and  above  all  the  position  which 
the  htsid-mufti  of  the  Turkish  Empire,  the 
Sheikh-ul-Islam,  holds  at  any  particular  period, 
may  well  serve  as  a  touchstone  of  the  influence 
of  the  canonists  on  public  life.  If  this  is  great, 
then  even  the  most  powerful  sultan  has  only  the 
possibility  of  choice  between  a  few  great  schol- 
ars, put  forward  or  at  all  events  not  disapproved 


POLITICAL  DEVELOPMENT  OF  ISLAM     103 

of  by  their  own  guild,  strengthened  by  public 
opinion.  If,  on  the  other  hand,  there  is  no  keen 
interest  felt  in  the  Shari'ah  (Divine  Law),  then 
the  temporal  rulers  can  do  pretty  much  what  they 
like  with  these  representatives  of  the  canon  law. 
Under  the  tyrannical  sway  of  Sultan  Abd-ul- 
Hamid,  the  Sheikh-ul-Islam  was  little  more  than 
a  tool  for  him  and  his  palace  clique,  and  for  their 
own  reasons,  the  members  of  the  Committee  of 
Union  and  Progress,  who  rule  Constantinople 
since  1908,  made  no  change  in  this :  each  new  min- 
istry had  its  own  Sheikh-ul-Islam,  who  had  to  be, 
above  everything,  a  faithful  upholder  of  the  con- 
stitutional theory  held  by  the  Committee.  The 
time  is  past  when  the  Sultan  and  the  Porte,  in 
framing  even  the  most  pressing  reform,  must  first 
anxiously  assure  themselves  of  the  position  that 
the  hojaSy  tolbas,  sojtas,  the  theologians  in  a  word, 
would  take  towards  it,  and  of  the  influence  that 
the  Sheikh-ul-Islam  could  use  in  opposition  to 
their  plans.  The  political  authority  makes  its 
deference  to  the  canonists  dependent  upon  their 
strict  obedience. 

This  important  change  is  a  natural  consequence 
of  the  modernization  of  Mohammedan  political 
life,  a  movement  through  which  the  expounders 
of  a  law  which  has  endeavoured  to  remain  sta- 
tionary since  the  year  1000  must  necessarily  get 
into  straits.  This  explains  also  why  the  religious 
life  of  Mohammedans  is  in  some  respects  freer  in 
countries    under    non-Mohammedan    authority, 


104  MOHAMMEDANISM 

than  under  a  Mohammedan  government.  Under 
English,  Dutch,  or  French  rule  the  'ulamas  are 
less  interfered  with  in  their  teaching,  the  muftis 
in  their  recommendations,  and  the  qddhts  in  their 
judgments  of  questions  of  marriage  and  inherit- 
ance than  in  Turkey,  where  the  life  of  Islam,  as 
state  religion,  lies  under  official  control.  In  indi- 
rectly governed  "native  states"  the  relation  of 
Mohammedan  "Church  and  State"  may  much 
more  resemble  that  in  Turkey,  and  this  is  some- 
times to  the  advantage  of  the  sovereign  ruler. 
Under  the  direct  government  of  a  modern  state, 
the  Mohammedan  group  is  treated  as  a  religious 
community,  whose  particular  life  has  just  the 
same  claim  to  independence  as  that  of  other  de- 
nominations. The  only  justifiable  limitation  is 
that  the  program  of  the  forcible  reduction  of  the 
world  to  Mohammedan  authority  be  kept  within 
the  scholastic  walls  as  a  point  of  eschatology, 
and  not  considered  as  a  body  of  prescriptions,  the 
execution  of  which  must  be  prepared. 

The  extensive  political  program  of  Islam,  de- 
veloped during  the  first  centuries  of  astounding 
expansion,  has  yet  not  prevented  millions  of 
Mohammedans  from  resigning  themselves  to  re- 
versed conditions  in  which  at  the  present  time 
many  more  Mohammedans  live  under  foreign  au- 
thority than  under  their  own.  The  acceptance 
of  this  change  was  facilitated  by  the  historical 
pessimism  of  Islam,  which  makes  the  mind  pre- 
pared for  every  sort  of  decay,  and  by  the  true 


POLITICAL  DEVELOPMENT  OF  ISLAM     105 

Moslim  habit  of  resignation  to  painful  experi- 
ences, not  through  fatalism,  but  through  rever- 
ence for  Allah's  inscrutable  will.  At  the  same 
time,  it  would  be  a  gross  mistake  to  imagine  that 
the  idea  of  universal  conquest  may  be  considered 
as  obliterated.  This  is  the  case  with  the  intel- 
lectuals and  with  many  practical  commercial  or 
industrial  men;  but  the  canonists  and  the  vulgar 
still  live  in  the  illusion  of  the  days  of  Islam's 
greatness. 

The  legists  continue  to  ground  their  apprecia- 
tion of  every  actual  political  condition  on  the  law 
of  the  holy  war,  which  war  ought  never  to  be 
allowed  to  cease  entirely  until  all  mankind  is  re- 
duced to  the  authority  of  Islam — the  heathen  by 
conversion,  the  adherents  of  acknowledged  Scrip- 
ture by  submission.  Even  if  they  admit  the  im- 
probability of  this  at  present,  they  are  comforted 
and  encouraged  by  the  recollection  of  the  lengthy 
period  of  humiliation  that  the  Prophet  himself 
had  to  suffer  before  Allah  bestowed  victory  upon 
his  arms ;  and  they  fervently  join  with  the  Friday 
preacher,  when  he  pronounces  the  prayer,  taken 
from  the  Qoran :  "And  lay  not  on  us,  O  our  Lord, 
that  for  which  we  have  not  strength,  but  blot  out 
our  sins  and  forgive  us  and  have  pity  upon  us. 
Thou  art  our  Master;  grant  us  then  to  conquer 
the  unbelievers!"  And  the  common  people  are 
willingly  taught  by  the  canonists  and  feed  their 
hope  of  better  days  upon  the  innumerable  legends 
of  the  olden  time  and  the  equally  innumerable 


io6  MOHAMMEDANISM 

apocalyptic  prophecies  about  the  future.  The 
political  blows  that  fall  upon  Islam  make  less  im- 
pression upon  their  simple  minds  than  the  sense- 
less stories  about  the  power  of  the  Sultan  of 
Stambul,  that  would  instantly  be  revealed  if  he 
were  not  surrounded  by  treacherous  servants,  and 
the  fantastic  tidings  of  the  miracles  that  Allah 
works  in  the  Holy  Cities  of  Arabia  which  are 
inaccessible  to  the  unfaithful. 

The  conception  of  the  Khalifate  still  exercises 
a  fascinating  influence,  regarded  in  the  light  of  a 
central  point  of  union  against  the  unfaithful. 
Apart  from  the  *dmils,  Mohammed's  agents 
amongst  the  Arabian  tribes,  the  Khalifate  was 
the  only  political  institution  which  arose  out  of 
the  necessity  of  the  Moslim  community,  without 
foreign  influence.  It  rescued  Islam  from  threat- 
ening destruction,  and  it  led  the  Faithful  to  con- 
quest. No  wonder  that  in  historic  legend  the 
first  four  occupiers  of  that  leadership,  who,  from 
Medina,  accomplished  such  great  things,  have 
been  glorified  into  saints,  and  are  held  up  to  all 
the  following  generations  as  examples  to  put 
them  to  shame.  In  the  Omayyads  the  ancient 
aristocracy  of  Mecca  came  to  the  helm,  and  under 
them,  the  Mohammedan  state  was  above  all,  as 
Wellhausen  styled  it,  "the  Arabian  Empire.''  The 
best  khalifs  of  this  house  had  the  political  wis- 
dom to  give  the  governors  of  the  provinces  suffi- 
cient independence  to  prevent  schism,  and  to 
secure  to  themselves  the  authority  in  important 


POLITICAL  DEVELOPMENT  OF  ISLAM     107 

matters.  The  reaction  of  the  non-Arabian  con- 
verts against  the  suppression  of  their  own  culture 
by  the  Arabian  conquerors  found  support  in  the 
opposition  parties,  above  all  with  the  Shi'ah.  The 
Abbasids,  cleverer  politicians  than  the  notori- 
ously unskilled  Alids,  made  use  of  the  Alid  prop- 
aganda to  secure  the  booty  to  themselves  at  the 
right  moment.  The  means  which  served  the 
Alids  for  the  establishment  only  of  an  invisible 
dynasty  of  princes  who  died  as  martyrs,  enabled 
the  descendants  of  Mohammed's  uncle  Abbas  to 
overthrow  the  Omayyads,  and  to  found  their  own 
Khalifate  at  Bagdad,  shining  with  the  brilliance 
of  an  Eastern  despotism. 

When  it  is  said  that  the  Abbasid  Khalifate 
maintained  itself  from  750  till  the  Mongol  storm 
in  the  middle  of  the  thirteenth  century,  that  only 
refers  to  external  appearance.  After  a  brief  suc- 
cess, the  actual  power  of  these  khalifs  was  trans- 
ferred to  the  hands,  first,  of  the  captains  of  their 
bodyguard,  then  of  sultan-dynasties,  whose  for- 
cibly acquired  powers  were  legalized  by  a  formal 
investiture.  In  the  same  way  the  large  provinces 
developed  into  independent  kingdoms,  whose 
rulers  considered  the  nomination-diplomas  from 
Bagdad  in  the  light  of  mere  ornaments.  Com- 
pared to  this  irreparable  disintegration  of  the  em- 
pire, temporary  schisms  such  as  the  Omayyad 
Khalifate  in  Spain,  the  Fatimid  Khalifate  in 
Egypt,  and  here  and  there  an  independent  organ- 


io8  MOHAMMEDANISM 

ization  of  the  Kharijites  were  of  little  signifi- 
cance. 

It  seems  strange  that  the  Moslim  peoples,  al- 
though the  theory  of  Islam  never  attributed  an 
hereditary  character  to  the  Khalifate,  attached 
so  high  a  value  to  the  Abbasid  name,  that  they 
continued  unanimously  to  acknowledge  the  Khal- 
ifate of  Bagdad  for  centuries  during  which  it  pos- 
sessed no  influence.  But  the  idea  of  hereditary 
rulers  was  deeply  rooted  in  most  of  the  peoples 
converted  to  Islam,  and  the  glorious  period  of  the 
first  Abbasids  so  strongly  impressed  itself  on  the 
mind  of  the  vulgar,  that  the  appearance  of  con- 
tinuation was  easily  taken  for  reality.  Its  void- 
ness  would  sooner  have  been  realized,  if  lack  of 
energy  had  not  prevented  the  later  Abbasids  from 
trying  to  recover  the  lost  power  by  the  sword,  or 
if  amongst  their  rivals  who  could  also  boast  of  a 
popular  tradition — e.  g.,  the  Omayyads,  or  still 
more  the  Alids — a  political  genius  had  succeeded 
in  forming  a  powerful  opposition.  But  the  sul- 
tans who  ruled  the  various  states  did  not  want  to 
place  all  that  they  possessed  in  the  balance  on  the 
chance  of  gaining  the  title  of  Khalif.  The  Moslim 
world  became  accustomed  to  the  idea  that  the 
honoured  House  of  the  Prophet's  uncle  Abbas 
existed  for  the  purpose  of  lending  an  additional 
glory  to  Mohammedan  princes  by  a  diploma. 
Even  after  the  destruction  of  Bagdad  by  the 
Mongols  in  1258,  from  which  only  a  few  Abbasids 
escaped  alive,  Indian  princes  continued  to  value 


POLITICAL  DEVELOPMENT  OF  ISLAM     109 

visits  or  deeds  of  appointment  granted  them  by 
some  begging  descendant  of  the  "Glorious 
House."  The  sultans  of  Egypt  secured  this  lux- 
ury permanently  for  themselves  by  taking  a 
branch  of  the  family  under  their  protection,  who 
gave  the  glamour  of  their  approval  to  every  new 
result  of  the  never-ending  quarrels  of  succession, 
until  in  the  beginning  of  the  sixteenth  century 
Egypt,  together  with  so  many  other  lands,  was 
swallowed  up  by  the  Turkish  conqueror. 

These  new  rulers,  who  added  the  Byzantine 
Empire  to  Islam,  who  with  Egypt  brought  South- 
ern and  Western  Arabia  with  the  Holy  Cities  also 
under  their  authority,  and  caused  all  the  neigh- 
bouring princes,  Moslim  and  Christian  alike,  to 
tremble  on  their  thrones,  thought  it  was  time  to 
abolish  the  senseless  survival  of  the  Abbasid 
glory.  The  prestige  of  the  Ottomans  was  as 
great  as  that  of  the  Khalifate  in  its  most  palmy 
days  had  been;  and  they  would  not  be  withheld 
from  the  assumption  of  the  title.  There  is  a 
doubtful  tale  of  the  abdication  of  the  Abbasids  in 
their  favour,  but  the  question  is  of  no  importance. 
The  Ottomans  owed  their  Khalifate  to  their 
sword;  and  this  was  the  only  argument  used  by 
such  canonists  as  thought  it  worth  their  while  to 
bring  such  an  incontestable  fact  into  reconcilia- 
tion with  the  law.  This  was  not  strictly  neces- 
sary, as  they  had  been  accustomed  for  eight  cen- 
turies to  acquiesce  in  all  sorts  of  unlawful  acts 


no  MOHAMMEDANISM 

which  history  demonstrated  to  be  the  will  of 
Allah. 

The  sense  of  the  tradition  that  established  de- 
scent from  the  tribe  of  Qoraish  as  necessary  for 
the  highest  dignity  in  the  community  was  capable 
of  being  weakened  by  explanation;  and,  even 
without  that,  the  leadership  of  the  irresistible 
Ottomans  was  of  more  value  to  Islam  than  the 
chimerical  authority  of  a  powerless  Qoraishite, 
In  our  time,  you  can  hear  Qoraishites,  and  even 
Alids,  warmly  defend  the  claims  of  the  Turkish 
sultans  to  the  Khalifate,  as  they  regard  these  as 
the  only  Moslim  princes  capable  of  championing 
the  threatened  rights  of  Islam. 

Even  the  sultans  of  Stambul  could  not  think  of 
restoring  the  authority  of  the  Khalif  over  the 
whole  Mohammedan  world.  This  was  prevented 
not  only  by  the  schismatic  kingdoms,  khalifates, 
or  imamates  like  Shi'itic  Persia,  which  was  con- 
solidated just  in  the  sixteenth  century,  by  the 
unceasing  opposition  of  the  Imams  of  Yemen, 
and  Kharijite  principalities  at  the  extremities  of 
the  Mohammedan  world.  Besides  these,  there 
were  numerous  princes  in  Central  Asia,  in  India, 
and  in  Central  Africa,  whom  either  the  Khalifate 
had  always  been  obliged  to  leave  to  themselves, 
or  who  had  become  so  estranged  from  it  that,  un- 
less they  felt  the  power  of  the  Turkish  arms, 
they  preferred  to  remain  as  they  were.  More- 
over, Islam  had  extended  itself  not  only  by  polit- 
ical means,  but  also  by  trade  and  colonization 


POLITICAL  DEVELOPMENT  OF  ISLAM     iii 

into  countries  even  the  existence  of  which  was 
hardly  known  in  the  political  centres  of  Islam, 
e.  g,,  into  Central  Africa  or  the  Far  East  of  Asia. 
Without  thinking  of  rivalling  the  Abbasids  or 
their  successors,  some  of  the  princes  of  such  re- 
mote kingdoms,  e.  g.,  the  sherifs  of  Morocco,  as- 
sumed the  title  of  Commander  of  the  Faithful, 
bestowed  upon  them  by  their  flatterers.  Today, 
there  are  petty  princes  in  East  India  under  Dutch 
sovereignty  who  decorate  themselves  with  the 
title  of  Khalif,  without  suspecting  that  they  are 
thereby  guilty  of  a  sort  of  arrogant  blasphemy. 

Such  exaggeration  is  not  supported  by  the  can- 
onists; but  these  have  devised  a  theory,  which 
gives  a  foundation  to  the  authority  of  Moham- 
medan princes,  who  never  had  a  real  or  fictitious 
connection  with  a  real  or  fictitious  Khalifate. 
Authority  there  must  be,  everywhere  and  under 
all  circumstances;  far  from  the  centre  this  should 
be  exercised,  according  to  them,  by  the  one  who 
has  been  able  to  gain  it  and  who  knows  how  to 
hold  it;  and  all  the  duties  are  laid  upon  him, 
which,  in  a  normal  condition,  would  be  discharged 
by  the  Khalif  or  his  representative.  For  this 
kind  of  authority  the  legists  have  even  invented 
a  special  name:  ^'shaukah''  which  means  actual 
influence,  the  authority  which  has  spontaneously 
arisen  in  default  of  a  chief  who  in  one  form  or 
another  can  be  considered  as  a  mandatary  of  the 
Khalifate. 

Now,  it  is  significant  that  many  of  those  Mo- 


112  MOHAMMEDANISM 

hammedan  governors,  who  owe  their  existence 
to  wild  growth  in  this  way,  seek,  especially  in  our 
day,  for  connection  with  the  Khalifate,  or,  at 
least,  wish  to  be  regarded  as  naturally  connected 
with  the  centre.  The  same  is  true  of  such  whose 
former  independence  or  adhesion  to  the  Turkish 
Empire  has  been  replaced  by  the  sovereignty  of 
a  Western  state.  Even  amongst  the  Moslim  peo- 
ples placed  under  the  direct  government  of  Euro- 
pean states  a  tendency  prevails  to  be  considered 
in  some  way  or  another  subjects  of  the  Sultan- 
Khalif.  Some  scholars  explain  this  phenomenon 
by  the  spiritual  character  which  the  dignity  of 
Khalif  is  supposed  to  have  acquired  under  the 
later  Abbasids,  and  retained  since  that  time,  until 
the  Ottoman  princes  combined  it  again  with  the 
temporal  dignity  of  sultan.  According  to  this 
view  the  later  Abbasids  were  a  sort  of  popes  of 
Islam;  while  the  temporal  authority,  in  the  cen- 
tral districts  as  well  as  in  the  subordinate  king- 
doms, was  in  the  hands  of  various  sultans.  The 
sultans  of  Constantinople  govern,  then,  under 
this  name,  as  much  territory  as  the  political  vicis- 
situdes allow  them  to  govern — i.  e.,  the  Turkish 
Empire;  as  khalif s,  they  are  the  spiritual  heads 
of  the  whole  of  Sunnite  Islam. 

Though  this  view,  through  the  ignorance  of 
European  statesmen  and  diplomatists,  may  have 
found  acceptance  even  by  some  of  the  great  pow- 
ers, it  is  nevertheless  entirely  untrue;  unless  by 
"spiritual  authority"  we  are  to  understand  the 


POLITICAL  DEVELOPMENT  OF  ISLAM  113 
empty  appearance  of  worldly  authority.  This 
appearance  was  all  that  the  later  Abbasids  re- 
tained after  the  loss  of  their  temporal  power; 
spiritual  authority  of  any  kind  they  never  pos- 
sessed. 

The  spiritual  authority  in  catholic  Islam  re- 
poses in  the  legists,  who  in  this  respect  are  called 
in  a  tradition  the  ''heirs  of  the  prophets.''  Since 
they  could  no  longer  regard  the  khalifs  as  their 
leaders,  because  they  walked  in  worldly  ways, 
they  have  constituted  themselves  independently 
beside  and  even  above  them;  and  the  rulers  have 
been  obliged  to  conclude  a  silent  contract  with 
them,  each  party  binding  itself  to  remain  within 
its  own  limits.^  If  this  contract  be  observed,  the 
legists  not  only  are  ready  to  acknowledge  the  bad 
rulers  of  the  world,  but  even  to  preach  loyalty 
towards  them  to  the  laity. 

The  most  supremely  popular  part  of  the  ideal 
of  Islam,  the  reduction  of  the  whole  world  to 
Moslim  authority,  can  only  be  attempted  by  a 
political  power.  Notwithstanding  the  destruc- 
tive criticism  of  all  Moslim  princes  and  state  offi- 
cials by  the  canonists,  it  was  only  from  them  that 
they  could  expect  measures  to  uphold  and  extend 

iThat  the  Khalifate  is  no  way  to  be  compared  with  the  Papacy, 
that  Islam  has  never  regarded  the  Khalif  as  its  spiritual  head,  I  have 
repeatedly  explained  since  1882  (in  "Nieuwe  Bijdragen  tot  de  kennis 
van  den  Islam,"  in  Bijdr.  tot  de  Taal-,  Landen  Volkenkunde  van 
Nederl  Indie,  Volgr.  4,  Deel  vi,  in  an  article,  "De  Islam,"  in  De  Gids, 
May,  1886,  in  Questions  Diplomatique s  et  Colonial es,  S^e  annee.  No. 
106,  etc.).  I  am  pleased  to  find  the  same  views  expressed  by  Prof.  M. 
Hartmann  in  Die  Welt  des  Islams,  Bd.  i.,  pp.  147-8. 


114  MOHAMMEDANISM 

the  power  to  Islam;  and  on  this  account  they  con- 
tinually cherished  the  ideal  of  the  Khalifate. 

In  the  first  centuries  it  was  the  duty  of  Moham- 
medans who  had  become  isolated,  and  who  had 
for  instance  been  conquered  by  "unbelievers,"  to 
do  ^'hijrahj'  i.  e,,  emigration  for  Allah's  sake,  as 
the  converted  Arabs  had  done  in  Mohammed's 
time  by  emigrating  to  Medina  to  strengthen  the 
ranks  of  the  Faithful.  This  soon  became  imprac- 
ticable, so  that  the  legists  relaxed  the  prescrip- 
tion by  concessions  to  ''the  force  of  necessity." 
Resignation  was  thus  permitted,  even  recom- 
mended; but  the  submission  to  non-Mussulmans 
was  always  to  be  regarded  as  temporary  and 
abnormal.  Although  the  partes  infidelium  have 
grown  larger  and  larger,  the  eye  must  be  kept 
fixed  upon  the  centre,  the  Khalifate,  where  every 
movement  towards  improvement  must  begin.  A 
Western  state  that  admits  any  authority  of  a 
khalif  over  its  Mohammedan  subjects,  thus  ac- 
knowledges, not  the  authority  of  a  pope  of  a  Mos- 
lim  Church,  but  in  simple  ignorance  is  feeding 
political  programs,  which,  however  vain,  always 
have  the  power  of  stirring  Mohammedan  masses 
to  confusion  and  excitement. 

Of  late  years  Mohammedan  statesmen  in  their 
intercourse  with  their  Western  colleagues  are 
glad  to  take  the  latter's  point  of  view;  and,  in 
discussion,  accept  the  comparison  of  the  Khali- 
fate with  the  Papacy,  because  they  are  aware  that 
only  in  this  form  the  Khalifate  can  be  made  ac- 


POLITICAL  DEVELOPMENT  OF  ISLAM     115 

ceptable  to  powers  who  have  Mohammedan  sub- 
jects. But  for  these  subjects  the  Khalif  is  then 
their  true  prince,  who  is  temporarily  hindered  in 
the  exercise  of  his  government,  but  whose  right 
is  acknowledged  even  by  their  unbelieving 
masters. 

In  yet  another  respect  the  canonists  need  the 
aid  of  the  temporal  rulers.  An  alert  police  is 
counted  by  them  amongst  the  indispensable 
means  of  securing  purity  of  doctrine  and  life. 
They  count  it  to  the  credit  of  princes  and  gover- 
nors that  they  enforced  by  violent  measures  se- 
clusion and  veiling  of  the  women,  abstinence 
from  drinking,  and  that  they  punished  by  flog- 
ging the  negligent  with  regard  to  fasting  or  at- 
tending public  worship.  The  political  decay  of 
Islam,  the  increasing  number  of  Mohammedans 
under  foreign  rule,  appears  to  them,  therefore, 
doubly  dangerous,  as  they  have  little  faith  in  the 
proof  of  Islam's  spiritual  goods  against  life  in  a 
freedom  which  to  them  means  license. 

They  find  that  every  political  change,  in  these 
terrible  times,  is  to  the  prejudice  of  Islam,  one 
Moslim  people  after  another  losing  its  independent 
existence;  and  they  regard  it  as  equally  danger- 
ous that  Moslim  princes  are  induced  to  accommo- 
date their  policy  and  government  to  new  inter- 
national ideas  of  individual  freedom,  which 
threaten  the  very  life  of  Islam.  They  see  the 
antagonism  to  all  foreign  ideas,  formerly  con- 
sidered as  a  virtue  by  every  true  Moslim,  daily 


ii6  MOHAMMEDANISM 

losing  ground,  and  they  are  filled  with  conster- 
nation by  observing  in  their  own  ranks  the  con- 
tamination of  modernist  ideas.  The  brilliant 
development  of  the  system  of  Islam  followed  the 
establishment  of  its  material  power;  so  the  rapid 
decline  of  that  political  power  which  we  are  wit- 
nessing makes  the  question  urgent,  whether 
Islam  has  a  spiritual  essence  able  to  survive  the 
fall  of  such  a  material  support.  It  is  certainly 
not  the  canonists  who  will  detect  the  kernel; 
"verily  we  are  God's  and  verily  to  Him  do  we 
return,"  they  cry  in  helpless  amazement,  and 
their  consolation  is  in  the  old  prayer:  "And  lay 
not  on  us,  O  our  Lord,  that  for  which  we  have  no 
strength,  but  blot  out  our  sins  and  forgive  us  and 
have  mercy  upon  us.  Thou  art  our  Master ;  grant 
us  then  to  conquer  the  Unbelievers !" 


IV 

ISLAM  AND  MODERN  THOUGHT 

One  of  the  most  powerful  factors  of  religious 
life  in  its  higher  forms  is  the  need  of  man  to  find 
in  this  world  of  changing  things  an  imperishable 
essence,  to  separate  the  eternal  from  the  tem- 
poral and  then  to  attach  himself  to  the  former. 
Where  the  possibility  of  this  operation  is  de- 
spaired of,  there  may  arise  a  pessimism,  which 
finds  no  path  of  liberation  from  the  painful  vicis- 
situdes of  life  other  than  the  annihilation  of  indi- 
viduality. A  firm  belief  in  a  sphere  of  life  freed 
from  the  category  of  time,  together  with  the  con- 
viction that  the  poetic  images  of  that  superior 
world  current  among  mankind  are  images  and 
nothing  else,  is  likely  to  give  rise  to  definitions 
of  the  Absolute  by  purely  negative  attributes 
and  to  mental  efforts  having  for  their  object  the 
absorption  of  individual  existence  in  the  inde- 
scribable infinite.  Generally  speaking,  a  high 
development  of  intellectual  life,  especially  an  in- 
timate acquaintance  with  different  religious  sys- 
tems, is  not  favourable  to  the  continuance  of 
elaborate  conceptions  of  things  eternal;  it  will 
rather  increase  the  tendency  to  deprive  the  idea 
of  the  Transcendent  of  all  colour  and  definiteness. 

117 


ii8  MOHAMMEDANISM 

The  naive  ideas  concerning  the  other  world  in 
the  clear-cut  form  outlined  for  them  by  previous 
generations  are  most  likely  to  remain  unchanged 
in  a  religious  community  where  intellectual  inter- 
course is  chiefly  limited  to  that  between  members 
of  the  community.  There  the  belief  is  fostered 
that  things  most  appreciated  and  cherished  in  this 
fading  world  by  mankind  will  have  an  enduring 
existence  in  a  world  to  come,  and  that  the  best  of 
the  changing  phenomena  of  life  are  eternal  and 
will  continue  free  from  that  change,  which  is  the 
principal  cause  of  human  misery.  Material  death 
will  be  followed  by  awakening  to  a  purer  life,  the 
idealized  continuation  of  life  on  earth,  and  for 
this  reason  already  during  this  life  the  faithful 
will  find  their  delight  in  those  things  which  they 
know  to  be  everlasting. 

The  less  faith  is  submitted  to  the  control  of 
intellect,  the  more  numerous  the  objects  will  be 
to  which  durable  value  is  attributed.  This  is  true 
for  different  individuals  as  well  as  for  one  reli- 
gious community  as  compared  to  another.  There 
are  Christians  attached  only  to  the  spirit  of  the 
Gospel,  Mohammedans  attached  only  to  the  spirit 
of  the  Qoran.  Others  give  a  place  in  their  world 
of  imperishable  things  to  a  particular  translation 
of  the  Bible  in  its  old-fashioned  orthography  or  to 
a  written  Qoran  in  preference  to  a  printed  one. 
Orthodox  Judaism  and  orthodox  Islam  have 
marked  with  the  stamp  of  eternity  codes  of  law, 
whose  influence  has  worked  as  an  impediment  to 


ISLAM  AND  MODERN  THOUGHT        119 

the  life  of  the  adherents  of  those  religions  and 
to  the  free  intercourse  of  other  people  with  them 
as  well.  So  the  Roman  Catholic  and  many  Prot- 
estant Churches  have  in  their  organizations  and 
in  their  dogmatic  systems  eternalized  institutions 
and  ideas  whose  unchangeableness  has  come  to 
retard  spiritual  progress. 

Among  all  conservative  factors  of  human  life 
religion  must  necessarily  be  the  most  conserva- 
tive, were  it  only  because  its  aim  is  precisely  to 
store  up  and  keep  under  its  guardianship  the 
treasures  destined  for  eternity  to  which  we  have 
alluded.  Now,  every  new  period  in  the  history 
of  civilization  obliges  a  religious  community  to 
undertake  a  general  revision  of  the  contents  of  its 
treasury.  It  is  unavoidable  that  the  guardians  on 
such  occasions  should  be  in  a  certain  measure 
disappointed,  for  they  find  that  some  of  the  goods 
under  their  care  have  given  way  to  the  wasting 
influence  of  time,  whilst  others  are  in  a  state 
which  gives  rise  to  serious  doubt  as  to  their 
right  of  being  classified  with  lasting  treasures. 
In  reality  the  loss  is  only  an  apparent  one;  far 
from  impoverishing  the  community,  it  enhances 
the  solidity  of  its  possessions.  What  remains 
after  the  sifting  process  may  be  less  imposing  to 
the  inexperienced  mind;  gradually  the  considera- 
tion gains  ground  that  what  has  been  rejected 
was  nothing  but  useless  rubbish  which  had  been 
wrongly  valued. 

Sometimes  it  may  happen  that   the   general 


120  MOHAMMEDANISM 

movement  of  spiritual  progress  goes  almost  too 
fast,  so  that  one  revision  of  the  stores  of  religion 
is  immediately  followed  by  another.  Then  dis- 
sension is  likely  to  arise  among  the  adherents  of 
a  religion;  some  of  them  come  to  the  conclusion 
that  there  must  be  an  end  of  sifting  and  think  it 
better  to  lock  up  the  treasuries  once  for  all  and 
to  stop  the  dangerous  enquiries;  whereas  others 
begin  to  entertain  doubt  concerning  the  value 
even  of  such  goods  as  do  not  yet  show  any  trace 
of  decay. 

The  treasuries  of  Islam  are  excessively  full  of 
rubbish  that  has  become  entirely  useless;  and  for 
nine  or  ten  centuries  they  have  not  been  submit- 
ted to  a  revision  deserving  that  name.  If  we  wish 
to  understand  the  whole  or  any  important  part 
of  the  system  of  Islam,  we  must  always  begin  by 
transporting  ourselves  into  the  third  or  fourth 
century  of  the  Hijrah,  and  we  must  constantly 
bear  in  mind  that  from  the  Medina  period  down- 
wards Islam  has  always  been  considered  by  its 
adherents  as  found  to  regulate  all  the  details  of 
their  life  by  means  of  prescriptions  emanating 
directly  or  indirectly  from  God,  and  therefore  in- 
capable of  being  reformed.  At  the  time  when 
these  prescriptions  acquired  their  definite  form, 
Islam  ruled  an  important  portion  of  the  world;  it 
considered  the  conquest  of  the  rest  as  being  only 
a  question  of  time;  and,  therefore,  felt  itself  quite 
independent  in  the  development  of  its  law.  There 
was  little  reason  indeed  for  the  Moslim  canonists 


ISLAM  AND  MODERN  THOUGHT        121 

to  take  into  serious  account  the  interests  of  men 
not  subject  to  Mohammedan  authority  or  to  care 
for  the  opinion  of  devotees  of  other  religions. 
Islam  might  act,  and  did  almost  act,  as  if  it  were 
the  only  power  in  the  world ;  it  did  so  in  the  way 
of  a  grand  seigneur,  showing  a  great  amount  of 
generosity  towards  its  subjugated  enemies.  The 
adherents  of  other  religions  were  or  would  be- 
come subjects  of  the  Commander  of  the  Faithful; 
those  subjects  were  given  a  full  claim  on  Moham- 
medan protection  and  justice;  while  the  inde- 
pendent unbelievers  were  in  general  to  be  treated 
as  enemies  until  in  submission.  Their  spiritual 
life  deserved  not  even  so  much  attention  as  that 
of  Islam  received  from  Abbe  Maracci  or  Doctor 
Prideaux.  The  false  doctrines  of  other  peoples 
were  of  no  interest  whatever  in  themselves;  and, 
since  there  was  no  fear  of  Mohammedans  being 
tainted  by  them,  polemics  against  the  abrogated 
religions  were  more  of  a  pastime  than  an  indis- 
pensable part  of  theology.  The  Mohammedan 
community  being  in  a  sense  Allah's  army,  with 
the  conquest  of  the  world  as  its  object,  apostasy 
deserved  the  punishment  of  death  in  no  lesser  de- 
gree than  desertion  in  the  holy  war,  nay  more  so; 
for  the  latter  might  be  the  effect  of  cowardice, 
whereas  the  former  was  an  act  of  inexcusable 
treachery. 

In  the  attitude  of  Islam  towards  other  re- 
ligions there  is  hardly  one  feature  that  has  not 
its  counterpart  in  the  practice  of  Christian  states 


122  MOHAMMEDANISM 

during  the  Middle  Ages.  The  great  difference 
is  that  the  Mohammedan  community  erected  this 
mediaeval  custom  into  a  system  unalterable  like 
all  prescriptions  based  on  its  infallible  "Agree- 
ment" (Ijma').  Here  lay  the  great  difficulty 
when  the  nineteenth  and  twentieth  centuries 
placed  the  Moslim  world  face  to  face  with  a 
civilization  that  had  sprung  up  outside  its  bor- 
ders and  without  its  collaboration,  that  was  from 
a  spiritual  point  of  view  by  far  its  superior  and 
at  the  same  time  possessed  of  sufficient  material 
power  to  thrust  the  Mohammedans  aside  wher- 
ever they  seemed  to  be  an  impediment  in  its 
way.  A  long  series  of  the  most  painful  experi- 
ences, meaning  as  many  encroachments  upon 
the  political  independence  of  Mohammedan  ter- 
ritories, ended  by  teaching  Islam  that  it  had 
definitely  to  change  its  lines  of  conduct.  The 
times  were  gone  when  relations  with  the  non- 
Mussulman  world  quite  different  from  those  fore- 
seen by  the  mediaeval  theory  might  be  considered 
as  exceptions  to  the  rule,  as  temporary  conces- 
sions to  transitory  necessities.  In  ever  wider 
circles  a  thorough  revision  of  the  system  came 
to  be  considered  as  a  requirement  of  the  time. 
The  fact  that  the  number  of  Mohammedans  sub- 
ject to  foreign  rule  increased  enormously,  and 
by  far  surpassed  those  of  the  citizens  of  inde- 
pendent Mohammedan  states,  made  the  problem 
almost  as  interesting  to  Western  nations  as  to 
the    Mohammedans    themselves.      Both    parties 


ISLAM  AND  MODERN  THOUGHT        123 

are  almost  equally  concerned  in  the  question, 
whether  a  way  will  be  found  to  associate  the 
Moslim  world  to  modern  civilization,  without 
obliging  it  to  empty  its  spiritual  treasury  alto- 
gether. Nobody  can  in  earnest  advocate  the 
idea  of  leaving  the  solution  of  the  problem  to 
rude  force.  The  Moslim  of  yore,  going  through 
the  world  with  the  Qoran  in  one  hand,  the  sword 
in  the  other,  giving  unbelievers  the  choice  be- 
tween conversion  or  death,  is  a  creation  of 
legendary  fancy.  We  can  but  hope  that  modern 
civilization  will  not  be  so  fanatical  against 
Moslims,  as  the  latter  were  unjustly  said  to  have 
been  during  the  period  of  their  power.  If  the 
modern  world  were  only  to  offer  the  Moham- 
medans the  choice  between  giving  up  at  once  the 
traditions  of  their  ancestors  or  being  treated  as 
barbarians,  there  would  be  sure  to  ensue  a  strug- 
gle as  bloody  as  has  ever  been  witnessed  in  the 
world.  It  is  worth  while  indeed  to  examine  the 
system  of  Islam  from  this  special  point  of  view, 
and  to  try  to  find  the  terms  on  which  a  durable 
modus  Vivendi  might  be  established  between 
Islam  and  modern  thought. 

The  purely  dogmatic  part  is  not  of  great  im- 
portance. Some  of  us  may  admire  the  tenets 
of  the  Mohammedan  doctrine,  others  may  as 
heartily  despise  them;  to  the  participation  of 
Mohammedans  in  the  civilized  life  of  our  days 
they  are  as  innoxious  as  any  other  mediaeval 
dogmatic  system  that  counts  its  millions  of  ad- 


124  MOHAMMEDANISM 

herents  among  ourselves.  The  details  of  Moham- 
medan dogmatics  have  long  ceased  to  interest 
other  circles  than  those  of  professional  theolo- 
gians; the  chief  points  arouse  no  discussion  and 
the  deviations  in  popular  superstition  as  v^ell  as 
in  philosophical  thought  w^hich  in  practice  meet 
v^ith  toleration  are  almost  unlimited.  The  Mo- 
hammedan Hell  claims  the  souls  of  all  heterodox 
people,  it  is  true;  but  this  does  not  prevent  be- 
nevolent intercourse  in  this  world,  and  more  en- 
lightened Moslims  are  inclined  to  enlarge  their 
definition  of  the  w^ord  "faithful"  so  as  to  include 
their  non-Mohammedan  friends.  The  faith  in  a 
Mahdi,  who  will  come  to  regenerate  the  world, 
is  apt  to  give  rise  to  revolutionary  movements 
led  by  skilful  demagogues  pretending  to  act  as 
the  ''Guided  One,"  or,  at  least,  to  prepare  the 
way  for  his  coming.  Most  of  the  European  pow- 
ers having  Mohammedan  subjects  have  had  their 
disagreeable  experiences  in  this  respect.  But 
Moslim  chiefs  of  states  have  their  obvious  good 
reasons  for  not  liking  such  movements  either; 
and  even  the  majority  of  ordinary  Moslims  look 
upon  candidates  for  Mahdi-ship  with  suspicion. 
A  contented  prosperous  population  offers  such 
candidates  little  chance  of  success. 

The  ritual  laws  of  Islam  are  a  heavy  burden 
to  those  who  strictly  observe  them;  a  man  who 
has  to  perform  worship  five  times  a  day  in  a 
state  of  ritual  purity  and  during  a  whole  month 
in  a  year  has  to  abstain  from  food  and  drink  and 


ISLAM  AND  MODERN  THOUGHT  125 
other  enjoyments  from  daybreak  until  sunset, 
is  at  a  disadvantage  when  he  has  to  enter  into 
competition  with  non-Mussulmans  for  getting 
work  of  any  kind.  But  since  most  of  the  Mos- 
lims  have  become  subjects  of  foreign  powers  and 
religious  police  has  been  practically  abolished 
in  Mohammedan  states,  there  is  no  external  com- 
pulsion. The  ever  smaller  minority  of  strict 
practisers  make  use  of  a  right  which  nobody  can 
contest. 

Drinking  wine  or  other  intoxicating  drinks, 
taking  interest  on  money,  gambling — including 
even  insurance  contracts  according  to  the  stricter 
interpretation — are  things  which  a  Moslim  may 
abstain  from  without  hindering  non-Moham- 
medans; or  which  in  our  days  he  may  do,  not- 
withstanding the  prohibition  of  divine  law,  even 
without  losing  his  good  name. 

Those  who  want  to  accentuate  the  antithesis 
between  Islam  and  modern  civilization  point 
rightly  to  the  personal  law;  here  is  indeed  a  great 
stumbling-block.  The  allowance  of  polygamy 
up  to  a  maximum  of  four  wives  is  represented 
by  Mohammedan  authors  as  a  progress  if  com- 
pared with  the  irregularity  of  pagan  Arabia  and 
even  with  the  acknowledgment  of  unlimited 
polygamy  during  certain  periods  of  Biblical  his- 
tory. The  following  subtle  argument  is  to  be 
found  in  some  schoolbooks  on  Mohammedan 
law:  The  law  of  Moses  was  exceedingly  benevo- 
lent to  males  by  permitting  them  to  have  an  un- 


126  MOHAMMEDANISM 

limited  number  of  wives;  then  came  the  law  of 
Jesus,  extreme  on  the  other  side  by  prescribing 
monogamy;  at  last  Mohammed  restored  the 
equilibrium  by  conceding  one  wife  to  each  of  the 
four  humours  which  make  up  the  male's  consti- 
tution. This  theory,  which  leaves  the  question 
what  the  woman  is  to  do  with  three  of  her  four 
humours  undecided,  will  hardly  find  fervent  ad- 
vocates among  the  present  canonists.  At  the 
same  time,  very  few  of  them  would  venture  to  pro- 
nounce their  preference  for  monogamy  in  a  gen- 
eral way,  polygamy  forming  a  part  of  the  law 
that  is  to  prevail,  according  to  the  infallible 
Agreement  of  the  Community,  until  the  Day  of 
Resurrection. 

On  the  other  side  polygamy,  although  allowed, 
is  far  from  being  recommended  by  the  majority 
of  theologians.  Many  of  them  even  dissuade  men 
capable  of  mastering  their  passion  from  mar- 
riage in  general,  and  censure  a  man  who  takes 
two  wives  if  he  can  live  honestly  with  one.  In 
some  Mohammedan  countries  social  circum- 
stances enforce  practical  monogamy.  The  whole 
question  lies  in  the  education  of  women;  when 
this  has  been  raised  to  a  higher  level,  polygamy 
will  necessarily  come  to  an  end.  It  is  therefore 
most  satisfactory  that  among  male  Moham- 
medans the  persuasion  of  the  necessity  of  a  solid 
education  for  girls  is  daily  gaining  ground.  This 
year  (1913),  a  young  Egyptian  took  his  doctor's 
degree  at  the  Paris  University  by  sustaining  a 


ISLAM  AND  MODERN  THOUGHT        127 

dissertation  on  the  position  of  women  in  the 
Moslim  world,  in  which  he  told  his  co-religionists 
the  full  truth  concerning  this  rather  delicate  sub- 
ject/ If  social  evolution  takes  the  right  course, 
the  practice  of  polygamy  will  be  abolished; 
and  the  maintenance  of  its  lawfulness  in  canon- 
ical works  will  mainly  be  a  survival  of  a  bygone 
phase  of  development. 

The  facility  with  which  a  man  can  divorce  his 
wife  at  his  pleasure,  contrasted  with  her  rights 
against  him,  is  a  still  more  serious  impediment 
to  the  development  of  family  life  than  the  insti- 
tution of  polygamy;  more  serious,  also,  than  veil- 
ing and  seclusion  of  women.  Where  the  general 
opinion  is  favourable  to  the  improvement  of  the 
position  of  women  in  society,  there  is  always 
found  a  way  to  secure  it  to  them  without  con- 
flicting with  the  divine  law;  but  a  radical  reform 
will  remain  most  difficult  so  long  as  that  law 
which  allows  the  man  to  repudiate  his  wife  with- 
out any  reason,  whereas  it  delivers  the  woman 
almost  unarmed  into  the  power  of  her  husband, 
is  considered  to  be  one  of  the  permanent  treas- 
ures of  Islam. 

It  is  a  pity  indeed  that  thus  far  women  vigor- 
ously striving  for  liberation  from  those  mediaeval 
institutions  are  rare  exceptions  in  Mohammedan 

1  Mansour  Fahmy,  La  condition  de  la  jemme  dans  la  tradition  et 
revolution  de  I'Islamisme,  Paris,  Felix  Alcan,  191 3.  The  sometimes 
imprudent  form  in  which  the  young  reformer  enounced  his  ideas  caused 
him  to  be  very  badly  treated  by  his  compatriots  at  his  return  from 
Europe. 


128  MOHAMMEDANISM 

countries.  Were  Mohammedan  women  capable 
of  the  violent  tactics  of  suffragettes,  they  would 
rather  try  to  blow  up  the  houses  of  feminists 
than  those  of  the  patrons  of  the  old  regime.  The 
ordinary  Mohammedan  woman  looks  upon  the 
endeavour  of  her  husband  to  induce  her  to  par- 
take freely  in  public  life  as  a  want  of  considera- 
tion; it  makes  on  her  about  the  same  impression 
as  that  which  a  respectable  woman  in  our  society 
would  receive  from  her  husband  encouraging  her 
to  visit  places  generally  frequented  by  people  of 
bad  reputation.  It  is  the  girls'  school  that  will 
awaken  those  sleeping  ones  and  so,  slowly  and 
gradually,  prepare  a  better  future,  when  the  Mos- 
lim  woman  will  be  the  worthy  companion  of  her 
husband  and  the  intelligent  educator  of  her  chil- 
dren. This  will  be  due,  then,  neither  to  the 
Prophet's  Sunnah  nor  to  the  infallible  Agree- 
ment of  the  Community  of  the  first  centuries  of 
Islam,  but  to  the  irresistible  power  of  the  evolu- 
tion of  human  society,  which  is  merciless  to  laws 
even  of  divine  origin  and  transfers  them,  when 
their  time  is  come,  from  the  treasury  of  everlast- 
ing goods  to  a  museum  of  antiquities. 

Slavery,  and  in  its  consequence  free  inter- 
course of  a  man  with  his  own  female  slaves  with- 
out any  limitation  as  to  their  number,  has  also 
been  incorporated  into  the  sacred  law,  and  there- 
fore has  been  placed  on  the  wrong  side  of  the 
border  that  is  to  divide  eternal  things  from  tem- 
poral ones.    This  should  not  be  called  a  mediaeval 


ISLAM  AND  MODERN  THOUGHT        129 

institution;  the  most  civilized  nations  not  hav- 
ing given  it  up  before  the  middle  of  the  nine- 
teenth century.  The  lavvr  of  Islam  regulated  the 
position  of  slaves  v^ith  much  equity,  and  there  is 
a  great  body  of  testimony  from  people  v^ho  have 
spent  a  part  of  their  lives  among  Mohammedan 
nations  which  does  justice  to  the  benevolent 
treatment  v^hich  bondmen  generally  receive  from 
their  masters  there.  Besides  that,  v^e  are  bound 
to  state  that  in  many  Western  countries  or  coun- 
tries under  Western  domination  v^hole  groups 
of  the  population  live  under  circumstances  v^ith 
which  those  of  Mohammedan  slavery  may  be 
compared  to  advantage. 

The  only  legal  cause  of  slavery  in  Islam  is  pris- 
onership  of  war  or  birth  from  slave  parents.  The 
captivity  of  enemies  of  Islam  has  not  at  all  neces- 
sarily the  effect  of  enslaving  them;  for  the  com- 
petent authorities  may  dispose  of  them  in  any 
other  way,  also  in  the  way  prescribed  by  modern 
international  law  or  custom.  In  proportion  to 
the  realization  of  the  political  ideal  of  Islam  the 
number  of  its  enemies  must  diminish  and  the  pos- 
sibilities of  enslaving  men  must  consequently 
decrease.  Setting  slaves  free  is  one  of  the  most 
meritorious  pious  works,  and,  at  the  same  time, 
the  regular  atonement  for  certain  transgressions 
of  the  sacred  law.  So,  according  to  Moham- 
medan principles,  slavery  is  an  institution  des- 
tined to  disappear. 

When,    in    the    last    century,    Mohammedan 


130  MOHAMMEDANISM 

princes  signed  international  treaties  for  the  sup- 
pression of  slavery,  from  their  point  of  view  this 
w^as  a  premature  anticipation  of  a  future  political 
and  social  development — a  step  w^hich  they  felt 
obliged  to  take  out  of  consideration  for  the  great 
powers.  In  Arabia,  every  effort  of  the  Turkish 
Government  to  put  such  international  agree- 
ments into  execution  has  thus  far  given  rise  to 
popular  sedition  against  the  Ottoman  authority. 
Therefore,  the  promulgation  of  decrees  of  aboli- 
tion was  stopped;  and  slavery  continued  to  ex- 
ist. The  import  of  slaves  from  Africa  has,  in 
fact,  considerably  diminished;  but  I  am  not  quite 
sure  of  the  proportional  increase  of  the  liberty 
which  the  natives  of  that  continent  enjoy  at 
home. 

Slavery  as  well  as  polygamy  is  in  a  certain 
sense  to  Mohammedans  a  sacred  institution,  be- 
ing incorporated  in  their  Holy  Law;  but  the 
practice  of  neither  of  the  two  institutions  is  in- 
dispensable to  the  integrity  of  Islam. 

All  those  antiquated  institutions,  if  considered 
from  the  point  of  view  of  modern  international 
intercourse,  are  only  a  trifle  in  comparison  with 
the  legal  prescriptions  of  Islam  concerning  the 
attitude  of  the  Mohammedan  community  against 
the  parts  of  the  world  not  yet  subject  to  its 
authority,  ''the  Abode  of  War"  as  they  are  tech- 
nically called.  It  is  a  principal  duty  of  the 
Khalif,  or  of  the  chiefs  considered  as  his  substi- 
tutes in  different  countries,  to  avail  themselves 


ISLAM  AND  MODERN  THOUGHT  131 
of  every  opportunity  to  extend  by  force  the  do- 
minion of  Allah  and  His  Messenger.  With  un- 
subdued unbelievers  peace  is  not  allow^ed ;  a  truce 
for  a  period  not  exceeding  ten  years  may  be  con- 
cluded if  the  interest  of  Islam  requires  it. 

The  chapters  of  the  Mohammedan  lavv^  on  holy 
war  and  on  the  conditions  on  v^hich  the  submis- 
sion of  the  adherents  of  tolerated  religions  is  to 
be  accepted  seem  to  be  a  foolish  pretension  if  we 
consider  them  by  the  light  of  the  actual  division 
of  political  power  in  the  world.  But  here,  too, 
to  understand  is  better  than  to  ridicule.  In  the 
centuries  in  which  the  system  of  Islam  acquired 
its  maturity,  such  an  aspiration  after  universal 
dominion  was  not  at  all  ridiculous;  and  many 
Christian  states  of  the  time  were  far  from  reach- 
ing the  Mohammedan  standard  of  tolerance 
against  heterodox  creeds.  The  delicate  point  is 
this,  that  the  petrification  or  at  least  the  process 
of  stiffening  that  has  attacked  the  whole  spiritual 
life  of  Islam  since  about  1000  a.d.  makes  its  ac- 
commodation to  the  requirements  of  modern  in- 
tercourse a  most  difficult  problem. 

But  it  is  not  only  the  Mohammedan  com- 
munity that  needed  misfortune  and  humiliation 
before  it  was  able  to  appreciate  liberty  of  con- 
science; or  that  took  a  long  time  to  digest  those 
painful  lessons  of  history.  There  are  still  Chris- 
tian Churches  which  accept  religious  liberty  only 
in  circumstances  that  make  supreme  authority 
unattainable    to    them;    and    which,    elsewhere, 


132  MOHAMMEDANISM 

would  not  disdain  the  use  of  material  means  to 
subdue  spirits  to  what  they  consider  the  abso- 
lute truth. 

To  judge  such  things  with  equity,  we  must 
remember  that  every  man  possessed  of  a  firm 
conviction  of  any  kind  is  more  or  less  a  mis- 
sionary; and  the  belief  in  the  possibility  of  win- 
ning souls  by  violence  has  many  adherents 
everywhere.  One  of  my  friends  among  the 
young-Turkish  state  officials,  who  wished  to  per- 
suade me  of  the  perfect  religious  tolerance  of 
Turkey  of  today,  concluded  his  argument  by  the 
following  reflection:  "Formerly  men  used  to  be- 
head each  other  for  difference  of  opinion  about 
the  Hereafter.  Nowadays,  praise  be  to  Allah, 
we  are  permitted  to  believe  what  we  like;  but 
people  continue  to  kill  each  other  for  political  or 
social  dissension.  That  is  most  pitiful  indeed; 
for  the  weapons  in  use  being  more  terrible  and 
more  costly  than  before,  mankind  lacks  the  peace 
necessary  to  enjoy  the  liberty  of  conscience  it 
has  acquired." 

The  truthful  irony  of  these  words  need  not  pre- 
vent us  from  considering  the  independence  of 
spiritual  life  and  the  liberation  of  its  development 
from  material  compulsion  as  one  of  the  greatest 
blessings  of  our  civilization.  We  feel  urged  by 
missionary  zeal  of  the  better  kind  to  make  the 
Mohammedan  world  partake  in  its  enjoyment. 
In  the  Turkish  Empire,  in  Egypt,  in  many  Mo- 
hammedan countries  under  Western  control,  the 


ISLAM  AND  MODERN  THOUGHT        133 

progressive  elements  of  Moslim  society  spon- 
taneously meet  us  half-way.  But  behind  them 
are  the  millions  who  firmly  adhere  to  the  old 
superstition  and  are  supported  by  the  canonists, 
those  faithful  guardians  of  what  the  infallible 
Community  declared  almost  one  thousand  years 
ago  to  be  the  doctrine  and  rule  of  life  for  all 
centuries  to  come.  Will  it  ever  prove  possible 
to  move  in  one  direction  a  body  composed  of 
such  different  elements,  or  will  this  body  be  torn 
in  pieces  when  the  movement  has  become  irre- 
sistible? 

We  have  more  than  once  pointed  to  the  catho- 
lic character  of  orthodox  Islam.  In  fact,  the  di- 
versity of  spiritual  tendencies  is  not  less  in  the 
Moslim  world  than  within  the  sphere  of  Chris- 
tian influence;  but  in  Islam,  apart  from  the  po- 
litical schisms  of  the  first  centuries,  that  diversity 
has  not  given  rise  to  anything  like  the  division 
of  Christianity  into  sects.  There  is  a  prophetic 
saying,  related  by  Tradition,  which  later  gen- 
erations have  generally  misunderstood  to  mean 
that  the  Mohammedan  community  would  be 
split  into  seventy-three  different  sects.  Moslim 
heresiologists  have  been  induced  by  this  predic- 
tion to  fill  up  their  lists  of  seventy-three  numbers 
with  all  sorts  of  names,  many  of  which  represent 
nothing  but  individual  opinions  of  more  or  less 
famous  scholars  on  subordinate  points  of  doc- 
trine or  law.  Almost  ninety-five  per  cent,  of  all 
Mohammedans  are  indeed  bound  together  by  a 


134  MOHAMMEDANISM 

spiritual  unity  that  may  be  compared  with  that 
of  the  Roman  Catholic  Church,  within  whose 
walls  there  is  also  room  for  religious  and  intel- 
lectual life  of  very  different  origin  and  tendency. 
In  the  sense  of  broadness,  Islam  has  this  advan- 
tage, that  there  is  no  generally  recognized 
palpable  authority  able  to  stop  now  and  then  the 
progress  of  modernism  or  similar  deviations  from 
the  trodden  path  with  an  imperative  "Halt!" 
There  is  no  lack  indeed  of  mutual  accusation  of 
heresy;  but  this  remains  without  serious  conse- 
quences because  of  the  absence  of  a  high  ecclesi- 
astical council  competent  to  decide  once  for  all. 
The  political  authorities,  who  might  be  induced 
by  fanatical  theologians  to  settle  disputes  by  vio- 
lent inquisitorial  means,  have  been  prevented  for 
a  long  time  from  such  interference  by  more 
pressing  affairs. 

A  knowledge  alone  of  the  orthodox  system  of 
Islam,  however  complete,  would  give  us  an  even 
more  inadequate  idea  of  the  actual  world  of 
catholic  Islam  than  the  notion  we  should  acquire 
of  the  spiritual  currents  moving  the  Roman 
Catholic  world  by  merely  studying  the  dogma 
and  the  canonical  law  of  the  Church  of  Rome. 

Nevertheless,  the  unity  of  Islamic  thought  is 
by  no  means  a  word  void  of  sense.  The  ideas  of 
Mohammedan  philosophers,  borrowed  for  a  great 
part  from  Neoplatonism,  the  pantheism  and  the 
emanation  theory  of  Mohammedan  mystics  are 
certainly  still  further  distant  from  the  simplicity 


ISLAM  AND  MODERN  THOUGHT        135 
of  Qoranic  religion  than  the  orthodox  dogmatics; 
but  all  those  conceptions  alike  show  indubitable 
marks  of  having  grown  up  on  Mohammedan  soil. 
In  the  works  even  of  those  mystics  who  efface 
the  limits  between  things  human  and  divine,  who 
put  Judaism,  Christianity,  and  Paganism  on  the 
same  line  with  the  revelation  of  Mohammed,  and 
who   are   therefore   duly  anathematized  by   the 
whole  orthodox  world,  almost  every  page  testi- 
fies to  the  relation  of  the  ideas  enounced  with 
Mohammedan  civilization.    Most  of  the  treatises 
on  science,  arts,  or  law  written  by  Egyptian  stu- 
dents for  their  doctor's  degree  at  European  uni- 
versities  make   no   exception   to   this   rule;   the 
manner    in    which    these    authors    conceive    the 
problems  and  strive  for  their  solution  is,  in  a 
certain  sense,  in  the  broadest  sense  of  course, 
Mohammedan.     Thus,  if  we  speak  of  Moham- 
medan thought,  civilization,  spirit,  we  have  to 
bear  in  mind  the  great  importance  of  the  system 
which,  almost  unchanged,  has  been  delivered  for 
about  one  thousand  years  by  one  generation  of 
doctors  of  Islam  to  the  other,  although  it  has  be- 
come ever  more  unfit  to  meet  the  needs  of  the 
Community,   on  whose  infallible   Agreement  it 
rests.     But,  at  the  same  time,  we  ought  to  con- 
sider that  beside  the  agreement  of  canonists,  of 
dogmatists,  and  of  mystics,  there  are  a  dozen 
more  agreements,  social,  political,  popular,  philo- 
sophical, and  so  on,  and  that  however  great  may 
be  the  influence  of  the  doctors,  who  pretend  to 


136  MOHAMMEDANISM 

monopolize  infallibility  for  the  opinions  on  which 
they  agree,  the  real  Agreement  of  Islam  is  the 
least  common  measure  of  all  the  agreements  of 
the  groups  which  make  up  the  Community. 

It  would  require  a  large  volume  to  review  the 
principal  currents  of  thought  pervading  the  Mos- 
lim  world  in  our  day;  but  a  general  notion  may 
be  acquired  by  a  rapid  glance  at  two  centres, 
geographically  not  far  distant  from  each  other, 
but  situated  at  the  opposite  poles  of  spiritual  life: 
Mecca  and  Cairo. 

In  Mecca  yearly  two  or  three  hundred  thou- 
sand Moslims  from  all  parts  of  the  world  come 
together  to  celebrate  the  hajj,  that  curious  set 
of  ceremonies  of  pagan  Arabian  origin  which 
Mohammed  has  incorporated  into  his  religion,  a 
durable  survival  that  in  Islam  makes  an  impres- 
sion as  singular  as  that  of  jumping  processions 
in  Christianity.  Mohammed  never  could  have 
foreseen  that  the  consequence  of  his  concession 
to  deeply  rooted  Arabic  custom  would  be  that 
in  future  centuries  Chinese,  Malays,  Indians, 
Tatars,  Turks,  Egyptians,  Berbers,  and  negroes 
would  meet  on  this  barren  desert  soil  and  carry 
home  profound  impressions  of  the  international 
significance  of  Islam.  Still  more  important  is 
the  fact  that  from  all  those  countries  young  peo- 
ple settle  here  for  years  to  devote  themselves  to 
the  study  of  the  sacred  science.  From  the  sec- 
ond to  the  tenth  month  of  the  Mohammedan 
lunar  year,  the  Haram,  i.  e.,  the  mosque,  which  is 


ISLAM  AND  MODERN  THOUGHT        137 

an  open  place  with  the  Ka'bah  in  its  midst  and 
surrounded  by  large  roofed  galleries,  has  free 
room  enough  between  the  hours  of  public  service 
to  allow  of  a  dozen  or  more  circles  of  students 
sitting  down  around  their  professors  to  listen  to 
as  many  lectures  on  different  subjects,  generally 
delivered  in  a  very  loud  voice.  Arabic  grammar 
and  style,  prosody,  logic,  and  other  preparatory 
branches,  the  sacred  trivium;  canonic  law,  dog- 
matics, and  mysticism,  and,  for  the  more  ad- 
vanced, exegesis  of  Qoran  and  Tradition  and 
some  other  branches  of  supererogation,  are 
taught  here  in  the  mediaeval  way  from  mediaeval 
text-books  or  from  more  modern  compilations 
reproducing  their  contents  and  completing  them 
more  or  less  by  treating  modern  questions  ac- 
cording to  the  same  methods. 

It  is  now  almost  thirty  years  since  I  lived  the 
life  of  a  Meccan  student  during  one  university 
year,  after  having  become  familiar  with  the  mat- 
ter taught  by  the  professors  of  the  temple  of 
Mecca,  the  Haram,  by  privately  studying  it,  so 
that  I  could  freely  use  all  my  time  in  observing 
the  mentality  of  people  learning  those  things  not 
for  curiosity,  but  in  order  to  acquire  the  only 
true  direction  for  their  life  in  this  world  and  the 
salvation  of  their  souls  in  the  world  to  come. 
For  a  modern  man  there  could  hardly  be  a  better 
opportunity  imagined  for  getting  a  true  vision 
of  the  Middle  Ages  than  is  offered  to  the  Orien- 
talist by  a  few  months'  stay  in  the  Holy  City  of 


138  MOHAMMEDANISM 

Islam.  In  countries  like  China,  Tibet,  or  India 
there  are  spheres  of  spiritual  life  which  present 
to  us  still  more  interesting  material  for  com- 
parative study  of  religions  than  that  of  Mecca, 
because  they  are  so  much  more  distant  from  our 
own;  but,  just  on  that  account,  the  Western  stu- 
dent would  not  be  able  to  adapt  his  mind  to  their 
mental  atmospheres  as  he  may  do  in  Mecca.  No 
one  would  think  for  one  moment  of  considering 
Confucianism,  Hinduism,  or  Buddhism  as  spe- 
cially akin  to  Christianity,  whereas  Islam  has 
been  treated  by  some  historians  of  the  Christian 
Church  as  belonging  to  the  heretical  offspring  of 
the  Christian  religion.  In  fact,  if  we  are  able  to 
abstract  ourselves  for  a  moment  from  all  dog- 
matic prejudice  and  to  become  a  Meccan  with 
the  Meccans,  one  of  the  "neighbours  of  Allah," 
as  they  call  themselves,  we  feel  in  their  temple, 
the  Haram,  as  if  we  were  conversing  with  our 
ancestors  of  five  or  six  centuries  ago.  Here 
scholasticism  with  a  rabbinical  tint  forms  the 
great  attraction  to  the  minds  of  thousands  of 
intellectually  highly  gifted  men  of  all  ages. 

The  most  important  lectures  are  delivered  dur- 
ing the  forenoon  and  in  the  evening.  A  walk,  at 
one  of  those  hours,  through  the  square  and  under 
the  colonnades  of  the  mosque,  with  ears  opened 
to  all  sides,  will  enable  you  to  get  a  general  idea 
of  the  objects  of  mental  exercise  of  this  inter- 
national assembly.  Here  you  may  find  a  sheikh 
of  pure  Arab  descent  explaining  to  his  audience, 


ISLAM  AND  MODERN  THOUGHT        139 

composed  of  white  Syrians  or  Circassians,  of 
brown  and  yellow  Abyssinians  and  Egyptians, 
of  negroes,  Chinese,  and  Malays,  the  probable 
and  improbable  legal  consequences  of  marriage 
contracts,  not  excepting  those  between  men  and 
genii;  there  a  negro  scholar  is  explaining  the 
ontological  evidence  of  the  existence  of  a  Creator 
and  the  logical  necessity  of  His  having  twenty 
qualities,  inseparable  from,  but  not  identical 
with.  His  essence;  in  the  midst  of  another  circle 
a  learned  mujti  of  indeterminably  mixed  extrac- 
tion demonstrates  to  his  pupils  from  the  standard 
work  of  al-Ghazali  the  absolute  vanity  of  law 
and  doctrine  to  those  whose  hearts  are  not  puri- 
fied from  every  attachment  to  the  world.  Most 
of  the  branches  of  Mohammedan  learning  are 
represented  within  the  walls  of  this  temple  by 
more  or  less  famous  scholars;  and  still  there  are 
a  great  number  of  private  lectures  delivered  at 
home  by  professors  who  do  not  like  to  be  dis- 
turbed by  the  unavoidable  noise  in  the  mosque, 
which  during  the  whole  day  serves  as  a  meeting 
place  for  friends  or  business  men,  as  an  exercise 
hall  for  Qoran  reciters,  and  even  as  a  passage 
for  people  going  from  one  part  of  the  town  to 
the  other. 

In  order  to  complete  your  mediaeval  dream 
with  a  scene  from  daily  life,  you  have  only  to 
leave  the  mosque  by  the  Bab  Dereybah,  one  of 
its  twenty-two  gates,  where  you  may  see  human 
merchandise    exhibited    for    sale   by   the    slave- 


I40  MOHAMMEDANISM 

brokers,  and  then  to  have  a  glance,  outside  the 
wall,  at  a  camel  caravan,  bringing  firev^ood  and 
vegetables  into  the  tov^n,  led  by  Beduins  whose 
outward  appearance  has  as  little  changed  as  their 
minds  since  the  day  when  Mohammed  began 
here  to  preach  the  Word  of  Allah. 

To  the  greater  part  of  the  world  represented 
by  this  international  exhibition  of  Islam,  as  a 
modern  Mussulman  writer  calls  it,  our  modern 
world,  with  all  its  problems,  its  emotions,  its 
learning  and  science,  hardly  exists.  On  the  other 
hand,  the  average  modern  man  does  not  under- 
stand much  more  of  the  mental  life  of  the  two 
hundred  millions  to  whom  the  barren  Mecca  has 
become  the  great  centre.  In  former  days,  other 
centres  were  much  more  important,  although 
Mecca  has  always  been  the  goal  of  pilgrimage 
and  the  cherished  abode  of  many  learned  men. 
Many  capitals  of  Islam  offered  the  students  an 
easier  life  and  better  accommodations  for  their 
studies;  while  in  Mecca  four  months  of  the  year 
are  devoted  to  the  foreign  guests  of  Allah,  by 
attending  to  whose  various  needs  all  Meccans 
gain  their  livelihood.  For  centuries  Cairo  has 
stood  unrivalled  as  a  seat  of  Mohammedan 
learning  of  every  kind;  and  even  now  the  Haram 
of  Mecca  is  not  to  be  compared  to  the  Azhar- 
mosque  as  regards  the  number  and  the  fame  of 
its  professors  and  the  variety  of  branches  cul- 
tivated. 

In  the  last  half-century,  however,  the  ancient 


ISLAM  AND  MODERN  THOUGHT        141 

repute  of  the  Egyptian  metropolis  has  suffered  a 
good  deal  from  the  enormous  increase  of  Euro- 
pean influence  in  the  land  of  the  Pharaohs;  the 
effects  of  which  have  made  themselves  felt  even 
in  the  Azhar.  Modern  programs  and  methods 
of  instruction  have  been  adopted;  and,  v^hat  is 
still  worse,  modernism  itself,  favoured  by  the  late 
Mufti  Muhammed  Abduh,  has  made  its  entrance 
into  the  sacred  lecture-halls,  which  until  a  few 
years  ago  seemed  inaccessible  to  the  slightest 
deviation  from  the  decrees  of  the  Infallible 
Agreement  of  the  Community.  Strenuous  efforts 
have  been  made  by  eminent  scholars  to  liberate 
Islam  from  the  chains  of  the  authority  of  the 
past  ages  on  the  basis  of  independent  interpreta- 
tion of  the  Qoran;  not  in  the  way  of  the  Wah- 
habi  reformers,  who  tried  a  century  before  to 
restore  the  institutions  of  Mohammed's  time  in 
their  original  purity,  but  on  the  contrary  with 
the  object  of  adapting  Islam  by  all  means  in  their 
power  to  the  requirements  of  modern  life. 

Official  protection  of  the  bold  innovators  pre- 
vented their  conservative  opponents  from  cast- 
ing them  out  of  the  Azhar,  but  the  assent  to  their 
doctrines  was  more  enthusiastic  outside  its  walls 
than  inside.  The  ever  more  numerous  adherents 
of  modern  thought  in  Egypt  do  not  generally 
proceed  from  the  ranks  of  the  Azhar  students, 
nor  do  they  generally  care  very  much  in  their 
later  life  for  reforming  the  methods  prevailing 
there,  although  they  may  be  inclined  to  applaud 


142  MOHAMMEDANISM 

the  efforts  of  the  modernists.  To  the  intellec- 
tuals of  the  higher  classes  the  Azhar  has  ceased 
to  offer  great  attraction;  if  it  were  not  for  the 
important  funds  (waqf)  for  the  benefit  of  pro- 
fessors and  students,  the  numbers  of  both  classes 
would  have  diminished  much  more  than  is  al- 
ready the  case,  and  the  faithful  cultivators  of 
mediaeval  Mohammedan  science  would  prefer  to 
live  in  Mecca,  free  from  Western  influence  and 
control.  Even  as  it  is,  the  predilection  of  foreign 
students  of  law  and  theology  is  turning  more  and 
more  towards  Mecca. 

As  one  of  the  numerous  interesting  specimens 
of  the  mental  development  effected  in  Egypt  in 
the  last  years,  I  may  mention  a  book  that  ap- 
peared in  Cairo  two  years  ago,^  containing  a 
description  of  the  present  Khedive's  pilgrimage 
to  Mecca  and  Medina,  performed  two  years  be- 
fore. The  author  evidently  possesses  a  good  deal 
of  the  scholastic  learning  to  be  gathered  in  the 
Azhar  and  no  European  erudition  in  the  stricter 
sense  of  the  word.  In  an  introductory  chapter 
he  gives  a  summary  of  the  geography  and  his- 
tory of  the  Arabian  peninsula,  describes  the 
Hijaz  in  a  more  detailed  manner,  and  in  his  very 
elaborate  account  of  the  journey,  on  which  he 
accompanied  his  princely  master,  the  topography 
of  the  holy  cities,  the  peculiarities  of  their  in- 
habitants and  of  the  foreign  visitors,  the  political 

^  Ar-rih  lah  al-Hijdsiyyah,  by  Muhammed  Labib  al-Batanuni,  2d 
edition,  Cairo,  1329  Hi j  rah. 


ISLAM  AND  MODERN  THOUGHT        143 
institutions,  and  the  social  conditions  are  treated 
almost  as  fully  and  accurately  as  we  could  desire 
from  the  hand  of  the  most  accomplished  Euro- 
pean scholar.     The  work  is  illustrated  by  good 
maps  and  plans  and  by  a  great  number  of  ex- 
cellent   photographs    expressly    taken    for    this 
purpose  by  the  Khedive's  order.    The  author  in- 
tersperses his  account  with  many  witty  remarks 
as  well  as  serious  reflections  on  religious  and  po- 
litical topics,  thus  making  it  very  readable  to 
those  of  us  who  are  familiar  with  the  Arabic  lan- 
guage.    He  adorns  his  description  of  the  holy 
places  and  of  the  pilgrimage-rites  with  the  unc- 
tuous phrases  used  in  handbooks  for  the  hajji, 
and  he  does  not  disturb  the  mind  of  the  pious 
reader  by  any  historical  criticism  of  the  tradi- 
tions connected  with  the  House  of  Allah,  the 
Black  Stone,  and  the  other  sanctuaries,  but  he 
loses  no  opportunity  to  show  his  dislike  of  all 
superstition;  sometimes,  as  if  to  prevent  Western 
readers  from  indulging  in  mockery,  he  compares 
Meccan  rites  or  customs  with  superstitious  prac- 
tices   current    amongst    Jews    or    Christians    of 
today. 

This  book,  at  whose  contents  many  a  Meccan 
scholar  of  the  old  style  will  shake  his  head  and 
exclaim:  ''We  seek  refuge  near  Allah  from  Satan, 
the  cursed!"  has  been  adopted  by  the  Egyptian 
Department  of  Public  Instruction  as  a  reading- 
book  for  the  schools. 

What  surprised  me  more  than  anything  else 


144  MOHAMMEDANISM 

was  the  author's  quoting  as  his  predecessors  in 
the  description  of  Mecca  and  Medina,  Burck- 
hardt,  Burton,  and  myself,  and  his  sending  me, 
although  personally  unacquainted  with  him,  a 
presentation  copy  with  a  flattering  dedication. 
This  author  and  his  book  would  have  been  im- 
possible in  the  Moslim  world  not  more  than 
thirty  years  ago.  In  Egypt  such  a  man  is  nowa- 
days already  considered  as  one  of  those  more 
conservative  moderns,  who  prefer  the  rationalis- 
tic explanation  of  the  Azhar  lore  to  putting  it 
aside  altogether.  Within  the  Azhar,  his  book  is 
sure  to  meet  with  hearty  approval  from  the  fol- 
lowers of  Muhammed  Abduh,  but  not  less  hearty 
disapproval  from  the  opponents  of  modernism 
who  make  up  the  majority  of  the  professors  as 
well  as  of  the  students. 

In  these  very  last  years  a  new  progress  of 
modern  thought  has  manifested  itself  in  Cairo 
in  the  foundation,  under  the  auspices  of  Fu'ad 
Pasha,  an  uncle  of  the  present  Khedive,  of  the 
Egyptian  University.  Cairo  has  had  for  a  long 
time  its  schools  of  medicine  and  law,  which  could 
be  turned  easily  into  university  faculties;  there- 
fore, the  founders  of  the  university  thought  it 
urgent  to  establish  a  faculty  of  arts,  and,  if  this 
proved  a  success,  to  add  a  faculty  of  science. 
In  the  meantime,  gifted  young  men  were  granted 
subsidies  to  learn  at  European  universities  what 
they  needed  to  know  to  be  the  professors  of  a 
coming  generation,  and,  for  the  present,  Chris- 


ISLAM  AND  MODERN  THOUGHT        145 

tian  as  well  as  Mohammedan  natives  of  Egypt 
and  European  scholars  living  in  the  country 
were  appointed  as  lecturers;  professors  being 
borrowed  from  the  universities  of  Europe  to 
deliver  lectures  in  Arabic  on  different  subjects 
chosen  more  or  less  at  random  before  an  audi- 
ence little  prepared  to  digest  the  lessons  offered 
to  them. 

The  rather  hasty  start  and  the  lack  of  a  well- 
defined  scheme  have  made  the  Egyptian  Univer- 
sity a  subject  of  severe  criticism.  Nevertheless, 
its  foundation  is  an  unmistakable  expression  of 
the  desire  of  intellectual  Egypt  to  translate  mod- 
ern thought  into  its  own  language,  to  adapt 
modern  higher  instruction  to  its  own  needs. 
This  same  aim  is  pursued  in  a  perhaps  more  effi- 
cacious manner  by  the  hundreds  of  Egyptian 
students  of  law,  science,  and  medicine  at  French, 
English,  and  some  other  European  universities. 
The  Turks  could  not  freely  follow  such  examples 
before  the  revolution  of  1908;  but  they  have 
shown  since  that  time  that  their  abstention  was 
not  voluntary.  England,  France,  Holland,  and 
other  countries  governing  Mohammedan  popu- 
lations are  all  endeavouring  to  find  the  right 
way  to  incorporate  their  Mohammedan  subjects 
into  their  own  civilization.  Fully  recognizing 
that  it  was  the  material  covetousness  of  past 
generations  that  submitted  those  nations  to  their 
rule,  the  so-called  colonial  powers  consider  it 
their  duty  now  to  secure  for  them  in  interna- 


146  MOHAMMEDANISM 

tional  intercourse  the  place  which  their  natural 
talent  enables  them  to  occupy.  The  question 
whether  it  is  better  simply  to  leave  the  Moslims 
to  Islam  as  it  was  for  centuries  is  no  longer  an 
object  of  serious  discussion,  the  reforming  proc- 
ess being  at  work  everywhere — in  some  parts 
with  surprising  rapidity.  We  can  only  try  to 
prognosticate  the  solution  which  the  near  future 
reserves  for  the  problem,  how  the  Moslim  world 
is  to  be  associated  with  modern  thought. 

In  this  problem  the  whole  civilized  world  and 
the  whole  world  of  Islam  are  concerned.  The 
ethnic  difference  between  Indians,  North-Afri- 
cans, Malays,  etc.,  may  necessitate  a  difference 
of  method  in  detail;  the  Islam  problem  lies  at 
the  basis  of  the  question  for  all  of  them.  On 
the  other  hand,  the  future  development  of  Islam 
does  not  only  interest  countries  with  Moham- 
medan dominions,  it  claims  as  well  the  attention 
of  all  the  nations  partaking  in  the  international 
exchange  of  material  and  spiritual  goods.  This 
would  be  more  generally  recognized  if  some 
knowledge  of  Islam  were  more  widely  spread 
amongst  ourselves;  if  it  were  better  realized  that 
Islam  is  next  akin  to  Christianity. 

It  is  the  Christian  mission  that  shows  the  deep- 
est consciousness  of  this  state  of  things,  and  the 
greatest  activity  in  promoting  an  association  of 
Mohammedan  thought  with  that  of  Western 
nations.  The  solid  mass  of  experience  due  to  the 
efforts  of  numerous  missionaries  is  not  of  an  en- 


ISLAM  AND  MODERN  THOUGHT        147 

couraging  nature.  There  is  no  reasonable  hope 
of  the  conversion  of  important  numbers  of  Mo- 
hammedans to  any  Christian  denomination. 
Broad-minded  missionary  societies  have  there- 
fore given  up  the  old  fruitless  proselytizing 
methods  and  have  turned  to  social  improvement 
in  the  v^ay  of  education,  medical  treatment,  and 
the  like.  It  cannot  be  denied,  that  w^hat  they 
want  above  all  to  bring  to  Mohammedans  is 
just  what  these  most  energetically  decline  to  ac- 
cept. On  the  other  hand  the  advocates  of  a 
purely  civilizing  mission  are  bound  to  acknowl- 
edge that,  but  for  rare  exceptions,  the  desire  of 
incorporating  Mohammedan  nations  into  our 
world  of  thought  does  not  rouse  the  devoted, 
self-denying  enthusiasm  inspired  by  the  vocation 
of  propagating  a  religious  belief.  The  ardour 
displayed  by  some  missionaries  in  establishing  in 
the  Dar  al-Islam  Christian  centres  from  which 
they  distribute  to  the  Mohammedans  those  ele- 
ments of  our  civilization  which  are  acceptable 
to  them  deserves  cordial  praise;  the  more  so  be- 
cause they  themselves  entertain  but  little  hope  of 
attaining  their  ultimate  aim  of  conversion.  Mo- 
hammedans who  take  any  interest  in  Chris- 
tianity are  taught  by  their  own  teachers  that 
the  revelation  of  Jesus,  after  having  suffered  seri- 
ous corruption  by  the  Christians  themselves,  has 
been  purified  and  restored  to  its  original  sim- 
plicity by  Mohammed,  and  are  therefore  inac- 
cessible to  missionary  arguments;  nay,  amongst 


148  MOHAMMEDANISM 

uncivilized  pagans  the  lay  mission  of  Islam  is 
the  most  formidable  competitor  of  clerical  propa- 
gation of  the  Christian  faith. 

People  who  take  no  active  part  in  missionary 
work  are  not  competent  to  dissuade  Christian 
missionaries  from  continuing  their  seemingly 
hopeless  labour  among  Mohammedans,  nor  to 
prescribe  to  them  the  methods  they  are  to  adopt; 
their  full  autonomy  is  to  be  respected.  But  all 
agree  that  Mohammedans,  disinclined  as  they 
are  to  reject  their  own  traditions  of  thirteen  cen- 
turies and  to  adopt  a  new  religious  faith,  become 
ever  better  disposed  to  associate  their  intellec- 
tual, social,  and  political  life  with  that  of  the 
modern  world.  Here  lies  the  starting  point  for 
two  divisions  of  mankind  which  for  centuries 
have  lived  their  own  lives  separately  in  mutual 
misunderstanding,  from  which  to  pursue  their 
way  arm  in  arm  to  the  greater  advantage  of  both. 
We  must  leave  it  to  the  Mohammedans  them- 
selves to  reconcile  the  new  ideas  which  they 
want  with  the  old  ones  with  which  they  cannot 
dispense;  but  we  can  help  them  in  adapting  their 
educational  system  to  modern  requirements  and 
give  them  a  good  example  by  rejecting  the  de- 
testable identification  of  power  and  right  in  poli- 
tics which  lies  at  the  basis  of  their  own  canonical 
law  on  holy  war  as  well  as  at  the  basis  of  the 
political  practice  of  modern  Western  states. 
This  is  a  work  in  which  we  all  may  collaborate, 
whatever  our  own  religious  conviction  may  be. 


ISLAM  AND  MODERN  THOUGHT        149 

The  principal  condition  for  a  fruitful  friendly 
intercourse  of  this  kind  is  that  we  make  the  Mos- 
lim  world  an  object  of  continual  serious  investi- 
gation in  our  intellectual  centres. 

Having  spent  a  good  deal  of  my  life  in  seeking 
for  the  right  method  of  associating  with  modern 
thought  the  thirty-five  millions  of  Mohamme- 
dans whom  history  has  placed  under  the  guard- 
ianship of  my  own  country,  I  could  not  help 
drawing  some  practical  conclusions  from  the 
lessons  of  history  which  I  have  tried  to  reduce 
to  their  most  abridged  form.  There  is  no  lack 
of  pessimists,  whose  wisdom  has  found  its 
poetic  form  in  the  words  of  Kipling: 

East  is  East  and  West  is  West, 
And  never  the  twain  shall  meet. 

To  me,  with  regard  to  the  Moslim  world, 
these  words  seem  almost  a  blasphemy.  The 
experience  acquired  by  adapting  myself  to  the 
peculiarities  of  Mohammedans,  and  by  daily 
conversation  with  them  for  about  twenty  years^ 
has  impressed  me  with  the  firm  conviction  that 
between  Islam  and  the  modern  world  an  un- 
derstanding is  to  be  attained,  and  that  no  period 
has  offered  a  better  chance  of  furthering  it  than 
the  time  in  which  we  are  living.  To  Kipling's 
poetical  despair  I  think  we  have  a  right  to  pre- 
fer the  words  of  a  broad-minded  modern  Hindu 
writer :  ''The  pity  is  that  men,  led  astray  by  ad' 


150  MOHAMMEDANISM 

ventitious    differences,    miss    the    essential    re- 
semblances." ^ 

It  would  be  a  great  satisfaction  to  me  if  my 
lectures  might  cause  some  of  my  hearers  to  con- 
sider the  problem  of  Islam  as  one  of  the  most 
important  of  our  time,  and  its  solution  worthy 
of  their  interest  and  of  a  claim  on  their  exertion. 

1  S.  M.  Mitra,  Anglo-Indian  Studies,  London,  Longmans,  Green  & 
Co.,  1913,  p.  232. 


INDEX 


Abbas   (Mohammed's  uncle),  107, 

108 
Abbasids,  91,  92;  government,  97, 

106;    Khalifate,    107,    108,    109, 

III,  112 
Abd-ul-Hamid,  Sultan,  102 
Abdub,    Mufti    Muhammed,    141, 

144 
Abraham.  37,  39,  4S>  49 
Abu   Bakr,   94 
Abyssinians,  36,  139 
Africa,  82,  90,  92,  iio-ii,  130 
Africans,  146 
Agreement  of  the  Community,  see 

*Ijma' 
Ahl  al-hadith   (men  of  tradition), 

97 
'Ajam,   52 
Al-Ash'ari,  72 
Alexander  the  Great,  61 
Ali,  the  fourth  Khalif,  89,  91,  94 
Ali,  Mohammed,  the  first  Khedive, 

82 
Alids,  27,  92,  94,  95,  107,  108,  no 
'amils  (agents),  87,  106 
Anti-Christ,  95 
Arabia,  15,  16,  38,  40,  4i>  47,  48> 

49,  SO,  SI,  52,  59,  60,  61,  62,  63, 

82,  87,  90,  93,  94,  106,  109,  125, 

130 

Arabian,  view  in  regard  to  the  line 
of  descent  through  a  woman,  35 ; 
tribes,  36;  prophet,  44,  45,  61, 
67;  heathens,  47,  52;  migration, 
54;  race,  62;  armies,  64;  Shi'ah, 
92;  conquerors,  121;  origin  of 
hajj,  136;  peninsula,  142 

Arabic,  traditions,  60;  speech,  70; 
arts,  77;  custom,  136;  grammar, 
137;  language,  143 

Arabs,  15,  16,  35,  4i,  43,  44,  5°, 
52;    the    nations    conquered    by 


the,  62,  63;  of  Christian  origin, 

70,  71,  87,  88,  114,  138 
Arnold,  Professor  T.  W.,  49,  62 
Asia,  no 
Assassins,   81 
Augustine,  23 
Azhar-mosque,  140,  141,  142,  I44 


B 

Bab  Dereybah,  139 

Babis,   81 

Bagdad,  107,  108 

Barbarians,   52 

Basra,  67 

Beduins,  64,  140 

Beha'is,  81 

Bellarminius,  18 

Berber,  136 

Bible,  45,  61,  118.     See  Scriptures. 

Bibliander,  18 

Black  Stone,  143 

Boulainvilliers,    Count   de,    22,    23 

Breitinger,  18 

Buddhism,    138 

Burckhardt,  144 

Burton,  144 

Byzantine  Empire,  16,  48,  51,  I09 

Byzantines,  63 


Caetani,  Prince,  31 

Cairo,    67,    136,    140.    144 

Casanova,  Professor  of  Paris,  26 

Caussin  de  Perceval,  25 

China,  15,  138 

Chinese,  55,  136,  139 

Christian,  18;  religion,  20,  138;  21, 
23,  37,  38,  39,  40,  43,  45 ;  in- 
fluence, 47,  48,  133;  rituals,  58; 
tradition,  60,  61;  model  of 
obUgatory  fasting,  65,  75; 
princes,    108;    states,    121,   131; 


151 


152 


INDEX 


Christian   (Continued) 
natives  of  Egypt,  144;  missions, 
146;    demonstrations,    147;    cen- 
tres in  Dar  al-Islam,  174;  faith 
and  missionaries,  147 

Christian  Church,  53,  71,  84,  13  t, 
138 

Roman   Catholic,   118,   134 
Protestant,  119 

Christianity,  16,  21,  37,  39,  40,  59, 
82,  96,   133,  134 

Christians,    62,    63;    religious    rites 
of,  6s,  71,  79,  118,  143,  147 

Circassians,  139 

Coderc,  22 

Commander  of  the  Faithful,  iii 

Committee  of  Union  and  Progress, 
103 

Confucianism,  138 

Constantinople,  103,  112 

Crypto-Mohammedanism,  18 


Dar  al-Islam,  147 

Day  of  Judgment,  28,  39.  40,  49, 

57,   61 
Doomsday,  40 
Dutch,  Indies,  55,  92,  93,  107,  109, 

132,    141,   142,    144,    14s 


Egyptian,  nation,  61,  135,  144; 
students,  135,  145;  Department 
of  Public  Instruction,  144;  uni- 
versity,  145 

Egyptians,  56,  126,  136,  139 

England,  145 

English,  104;  university,  145 


Faqihs  (canonists)  97,  100,  loi,  102 

Faithful,  68 

Fatima,  91 

Fatimite,    dynasty,    92;    Khalifate, 

107 
Fatwa,  loi 

French,  104;  university,  14"^ 
Fu'ad  Pasha,  144 


Ghazali,  76,  77,  78,  100,  139 
Gideon,  37 


Goldziher,  31 

Gospels,  34,  6s,  118.  See  Scrip- 
tures. 

H 

Hadith  (legislative  tradition),  32, 
47,  49,  50,  67,  74,  79,  83,  137 

Hadramaut,  54,  S5 

Hadramites,   54 

Hagar,  4s 

Hajj    (pilgrimage),  4s,  S9,  136 

Hanafites,  70 

Hanbalites,  70,  81 

Haram  (mosque),  137,  138,  140 

Hell,  72,  99,  loi 

Hijaz,   142 

Hijrah,  29,  31,  42,  75,  76,  83,  97, 
114,    120 

Hinduism,  138 

Holy  Cities,  109,  137.  See  Mecca 
and  Medina. 

Holy  Family  (ali  and  Fatimah),  27 

Hottinger,    18,    19 

Hud,  the  prophet,  61 


*Ijma'  (Agreement  of  the  Com- 
munity), 74,  77,  78,  80,  81,  83, 
84,  97,  98,  122,  126,  128,  133, 
13s,  141 

Imams,  89,  94,  96;  of  Yemen,  no 

India,  55,  75,  no,  iii,  138 

Indians,   136,  146 

Indonesia,  53 

Isaac,  37 

Ishmael,  37,  45 

Ishma'ilites,   81 

Islam,  16,  17,  20,  21,  25,  27,  28,  30, 
39,  44,  45,  48,  49,  52,  53,  54,  57, 
S8,  59,  60,  63,  6s,  66,  67,  68,  70, 
71,  72,  73,  76,  77,  79,  81,  82,  84, 
8s,  86,  88,  90,  93,  95,  97,  99,  I03, 
104,  105,  106,  108,  109,  no,  112, 
113,  114,  IIS,  116,  118,  120, 
121,  122,  123,  125,  127,  129,  130, 
131,  133,  134,  136,  138,  140,  141, 
146,  148,  149,  150 


Jacob,  37 

Jahiliyyah     (Arabian     paganism) , 

54 


INDEX 


153 


Jesus  Christ,  18,  37,  38,  39,  40,  44, 
49,  66,  95 ;  Mehdi,  96,  125,  147 

Jewish,  religion,  20,  60,  61;  influ- 
ence, 47;  rituals,  58;  model  of 
fasting,  65 

Jews,  20,  36,  37,  39,  41,  43,  44, 
45,  48,  62,  71 

Jihad,  59 

Judaism,  30,  31,  40,  59,  118,  135 


K 

Ka'bah,  137 

Khalif,  the  first,  62,  88,  91,  97,  108, 

no,  III,  112,  114,  115,  130 
KhaUfate,   89,  90,  91,   92,  93,   96, 

106,  107,  108,  109,  no.  III,  112, 

114 
Khalif s,  the  first  four,  89,  91,  96; 

89,  106,  107,  112 
Kharijites,  69,  89,  94,  108,  no 
Khedive,  142,  143,  171 
Kiphng,  149 
Kufa,  67 


Lammens,  Father,  31,  32.  48,  60 


M 

Mahdi,  26,  94,  95,  96,  124 

Malays,  136,  139,  146 

Malikites,    70 

Maracci,  Abbe,  19,  20,  22,  71 

Mary  (mother  of  Jesus),  37 

Maulid,  34 

Mecca,  17,  25,  31,  34,  35,  36,  37, 
44,  46,52,  58,  59,  63,  67,  93,  106, 
136,  137,  140,  142,  144 

Meccans,  40,  45,  46,  59,  137,  140, 
142 

Medina,  25,  42,  44,  47,  51,  67,  87, 
106,  114,  120,  142,  144 

Medinese,  89 

Messiah,  66,  96 

Middle  Ages,  122,  137 

Misr,  see  Cairo 

Mohammedan,  religion,  19;  mas- 
ters, 62;  state,  69,  104,  106,  122, 
124;  orthodox  dogma,  71;  au- 
thorities, 84,  121;  law  books,  89; 
countries,  99,  126,  128,  132;  po- 
litical   life,    103;    Church,    104; 


Princes,  108,  in,  129;  world, 
no,  132;  governors,  112;  sub- 
jects, 114,  115,  124;  masses,  131; 
statesmen,  114;  protection,  120; 
community,  122,  131;  territories, 
122;  dogmatics,  124;  Hell,  124; 
Authors,  125;  law,  125;  women, 
128;  nations,  128,  147;  slavery, 
129;  principles,  129;  standard  of 
tolerance,  132;  philosophers,  134; 
mystics,  134;  thought,  135,  147; 
lunar  year,  136;  learning,  139, 
140;  science,  142;  populations, 
145 ;  dominions,  144 

Mohammedans,  16,  18,  20,  21,  24, 
58,  62,  68,  77,  84,  94,  98,  103, 
104,  114,  115,  118,  121,  122,  123, 
124,  126,  130,  133,  135;  natives 
of  Egypt,  145,  147,  148,  149 

Mongols,  107,  108 

Morocco,   15 

Moses,  37,  39,  40,  44 

Moslim,  18,  20,  59,  62,  65,  69,  71, 
72,  74,  79,  80,  81,  82,  83,  84,  85, 
86,  87,  88,  93,  96,  105,  108; 
princes,  108,  no,  113,  115;  peo- 
ple, 112,  115;  authority,  113; 
church,  114;  canonists,  120; 
world,  121,  122,  123,  124,  127, 
133,  136,  144,  146,  148,  149; 
chiefs  of  states,  124,  125; 
woman,  128;  society,  132;  heresi- 
ologists,  133,  14s 

Mufti,  100,  loi,  102,  104,  139 

Muir,  25,  53 

Mujtahids,  94 

Mutakallim,  71 

Mu'tazilites,    72 

N 

Neo-Platonic  origin   of  mysticism, 

75 
Neo-Platonism,  134 
Noldeke,  24,  25 
Non-Alids.  93 
Non- Arabian,  107 
Non-Arabic  Moslims,   70 


Omar,  94 

Omayyads,  51,  91,  92,  94,  97,  106, 
107,  108 


154 


INDEX 


Othman,  91,  94;  authority,  130 
Ottoman  princes,  112 
Ottomans,  92,  109 


Paganism,   135 

Papacy,  114 

Paradise,  57,  72 

Parsis,  62 

Persia,  51,  75,  95,  no 

Persian  Empire,  51,  75,  95,  no 

Porte,   the,   104 

Prideaux,    Dr.,    19,    22 

Protestantism,  18,  20 


Qadhis,  98,  99,  100,  loi,  102,  104 

Qaris  (Qoran  scholars),  97 

Qarmatians,  81 

Qoraish,  34 

Qoran,  18,  19,  23,  25,  26,  27,  28, 
29,  31,  32,  34,  38,  40,  47,  48,  49, 
52,  60,  62,  64,  65,  66,  67,  68,  73, 
74,  77,  78,  82,  83,  87,  88;  schol- 
ars, 97,  105,  118,  123,  135,  137; 
reciters,  139,  141 

Qoranic,  revelations,  61;  religion, 
13s 


Salat,  58 

Sale,  23 

Salih,  the  prophet,  61 

Sasanids,    16 

Saul,   37 

Sayyids,  93 

Scriptures,  18,  24,  28,  31,  33;  peo- 
ple of  the,  36,  38,  47,  62,  64,  IDS 

Shafi'ites,   70 

Shahs  of  Persia,  94 

Shari'ah  (Divine  Law),  103 

Shaukah  (actual  influence),  iii 

Sheikhites,   81 

Sheikh-ul-Islam,  102,   103 

Sherifs,  93 

Sherifs  of  Mecca,  92,  93 

Sherifs,  rulers  of  Morocco,  92,  93, 
III 


Shi'ah   (the  Party  of  the  House) 

91,   93,  94,   95,  96,   107 
Shi'ites,  27,  69,  81,  93,  96,  in 
Sira  (bibliography),  32,  34 
Spain,  107 
Sprenger,  24,  46 
Stambul,    no 

Sultan,    103,    106,    no,    112 
Sunnah,  67,  68,  72,  73,  78,  128 
Sunnites,  95,  112 
Syria,  55 
Syrians,  36,  139 


Taif,  63 

Tatars,  136 

Testament,  see  Scriptures 

Tibet.  138 

Tradition,  see  Hadith 

Trinity,  39 

Turkey,  93;  Sultan  of,  95 

Turkish,  Empire,  19,  102,  112,  132; 
Circles,  97;  conqueror,  109;  Sul- 
tan, no;  arms,  no;  government, 
130;  state  officials,  132 

Turks,  19,  21,  92,  93,  136,  i45 

U 

'Ulama'  (learned  men),  97 


Voltaire,   23 


W 


Wahhabi  reformers,  82,  141 
Weil,   24,   29 
Wellhausen,    106 
Wezirs,  97 


Yemen,  93;  Imams  of,  no 

Z 

Zaidites,    93 
Zakat  (taxes),  59 
Zanzibar,  90 


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